


What doesn't kill you

by grimmie_me



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Human, Community: norsekink, Gen, Major Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 40,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmie_me/pseuds/grimmie_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for a promt on norsekink, asking for an Office-AU, where Loki and Thor are sons of businessman Odin, who gives his company to an incompetent Thor while Loki finds out he has leukemia and is adopted.  Things go downhill quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What are brothers for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

The last days of good autumn weather were saying their goodbyes to New York. Though the temperature was still pleasant and rain so far limited to a few nightly showers, the leaves were turning bright gold and red and had started to litter the sideways along the parks. The distinguished building of Asgard Enterprises was located at the edge of such a park, providing the residents of the higher floors with a spectacular view of New York in a riot of colours.

The view was sadly lost on Loki, second son of Asgard’s CEO Odin Asgard. In fact, a whole month of such views had gone by unnoticed as he had nearly barricaded himself in his small office (which had quite a lovely view) in order to get the dozens of reports his father requested out on time. To make matters worse, he had been battling a very persistant flu over the course of that month and the medication his doctor had given him for it wasn’t doing the trick. Loki knew that he would have healed by now if he had cut back on his hours and had used that time to sleep and let his body fight of the virusses. Instead, he had trusted in antibiotics and aspirins to battle the fever and nagging pain in his joints.

The rhythm of his steady typing was broken as the door to the office was thrown open. Loki cursed to himself as his older brother waltzed in as if he owned the room. He had been making good time on his last report and it looked as if he would actually finish before 8 o’clock that evening for a change.

As usual the large blond man was dressed not in a suit, but designer jeans and a sweatshirt that probably cost as much as Loki’s tailored Armani. “Brother!” Thor boomed, completely oblivious to being rather unwelcome at the moment. “Why are you still here? It’s already half past 5 on a friday evening. You should go out and relax, your precious numbers will still be here on monday.” He pulled out a chair without waiting for an invitation and dropped heavily into it. Loki imagined he could hear the poor thing squeel at the abuse.

“While the numbers may wait, Thor, father will not. He requested I have this on his desk by monday morning and that’s exactly when I intend it to be there.” Resigning himself to his brother’s disruptive presence, Loki took the opportunity to plop another aspirin into his glass of water and watched as it fizzed while it dissolved. Really, how long could this stupid flu drag on anyway? “Was there anything you wanted, Thor?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact there is.” Thor bent foward and leaned on the desk, giving his brother a conspiratory grin, “Father has asked me to go over the numbers of last quarter so I can sit in on the general assembly next week.” His grin became even wider as Loki raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “We both know that I won't understand all the implications of them, so I thought I could swing by this weekend so you could explain them to me.”

Loki frowned down at his glass before looking back at his brother. He had had other plans for his weekend, namely crawling into his bed this evening and preferably not comming out of it again before 7am on monday. “Have you at least tried to understand them?” he asked, voice dangerously close to a whine.

“We both know I have little interest in this company, brother. Frankly, we have much better people to lead it than me. There is father and a whole lot of managers. And you, of course. I’m sure whatever they decide will be fine. No need for me to drudge through all those boring things.” Thor replied, casually streching backward and linking his hands behind his head, sprawling like the All-American God he thought himself to be.

Loki downed his glass of aspirin, deciding he would need it for more than the persistent fever. Apparently his brother had deemed it a great day to gift him with a headache. “Thor, you cannot just concern yourself with parties for the rest of your life. You’re 31! Father is not going to do this forever and managment only brings you so far. There are people who have to work out the headlines of business for the future. And as his son, father is looking to you to be part of that team.” He scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “Just come to my place on saturday, alright, I’ll take you through them.” He barely succeeded in biting back the ‘again’ that he really wanted to finish the sentence with.

Thor pouted but knew better than to disappoint their father in something as important as this. “Fine, but not before the noon, I’m going out with my friends tonight. And make sure you have beer, I want to at least be able to mix the pleasant with the necessary evil.” And with that he jumped out of his chair and strolled out without a care in the world. Loki, left with his numbers and silence once more, sighed before he began typing again. It would be 9 pm before he saw the front door of his appartment.


	2. Board meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Monday arrived far too soon. Loki felt as if his head had barely hit his pillow before his alarm went off, pulling him from warm, black nothingness into the stress of another week. He fumbled for the off-switch, frowning as he opened his eyes to find a big bruise on the arm he had extended. He didn’t remeber hitting anything yesterday. Maybe it was a belated reaction on the blood his doctor had drawn Saturday. Loki had finally gotten tired enough of his flu to go and have another chat with his GP. The man, a competent greying giant with a friendly face named Derek Bennet, had suggested they send a bloodsample to the lab for analysis and use the results to find a better adapted antibiotic.

Then at about 4 in the afternoon, Thor had stumbled in, still obviously hungover. His brother had drunk in silence (coffee as Loki had refused to buy him beer) as he listened to Loki explain what all the numbers and charts were actually saying. Then he gave him an overview of what they could expect in the comming months, hoping that would be sufficient preperation for monday’s meeting. Despite their differences, Loki loved his brother and couldn’t send him into a lion’s den to just fend for himself. Really, those men could make sharks look innocent!

It wasn’t that Thor was stupid, per se, more that he simply had no interest in running a large business like Asgard. Loki often thought he would be happier being a carpenter or something else where he could use his hands. He had been rather good at fixing their broken toys when they had been little. But father had insisted both his sons step into the family company and what father wanted, father got.

Giving a last sigh at the bruise on his arm, Loki rolled out of his bed, grabbing a quick shower. The warm spray felt delicious on his skin, even with his still elevated temperature and he leaned against the tile to let it massage his back. He turned off the spray as the water started to run cold, taking a towel and winding it around his waist, noticing he had a larger part of the towel left to tuck in. Must have lost some weight as well due to all that stress. Maybe he’d buy himself a burger tonight, to celebrate all his hard work and the comming of an easier period.

He dressed fast, took his briefcase and headed out, grabbing tea and a sandwich from his favorite shop on the way to his office. Intending to breeze past the other offices (most of them still empty so early on monday) he was stopped by the sight of his father in conversation with his secretary. Upon seeing him approach, Odin gave him a warm smile.

“Loki,” he greeted, briefly putting a hand on his younger son’s shoulder. “Thank you for that report.”

“Of course.” Loki said, not knowing what to do with the unlooked for thank you. His father asked and he delivered, that was just the way of it.

“Good, good.” Odin continued, “I trust I do not have to remind you of the General Assembly at 9?”

It was said with just a slight note of teasing, but it still hurt that his father could joke about him missing something this important that he had slaved on for a month. Sometimes he wondered if anyone in his family knew or cared just how big his role had been within the firm for the past three years as he had worked himself up from a simple management position. Swallowing down his irritation, he simply gave a soft smile: “I’ll be there.” He assured his father. Odin gave him a final pat on the shoulder and disappeared into his own office.

Mandy, Odin’s capable secretary smiled at him. “How he even thinks that meeting would be possible without all your hard work I’ll never understand.” She looked him over critically. “Are you still having that flu? You look tired. Perhaps you should take a vacation when this meeting is over.”

“I think I just might.” Loki said, glad to get some appreciation for his work. “I’ll see you later, Mandy.” He said as he took off for his own office, passing Thor’s much larger, and far too often empty, space. He didn’t have much time before the meeting, just enough to check his mail and reply to the more urgent stuff while having breakfast, before gathering his papers and going to take his seat around the large oval table in the conferenceroom.

Odin, as usual, presided from the comfortable chair at the head. Thor had managed to drag himself from his bed on time, having put on probably the only suit he owned and was now seated at Odin’s right hand. Loki took his customary seat at his father’s left side, giving his brother a smile and a nod. The rest of the seats filled up with the heads of the different departments.

The meeting was much like all such meetings. Loki learned nothing new since he had seen all the numbers before. He was, however, delighted that Thor looked as if he knew what everyone was talking about as well thanks to Loki’s explanation. He even put in some of the things he had remebered for planning their future course of action. The proud look Odin gave his oldest son made his own smile slip a little: Loki had never gotten any recognition for simply knowing all these things and the fact that Thor gained it so easily was galling.  
Finally all points on the agenda where crossed of and people started packing up. Odin stood, but instead of dismissing the assembly he waited until he had everyone’s attention. Thor looked at Loki with an eyebrow raised in question, but he could do nothing but shake his head slightly. He knew nothing of what their father was planning.

“As you all know,” Odin started, “I’ll turn 65 this year. I’m not getting any younger and I’ve decided I want to spend more time with my wife. I’ll be stepping down at the end of this year, but I’m proud to anounce that the firm will still be having an Asgard at the wheel after that.”

The departmentheads started throwing covert looks at Loki and Thor gave him a big smile. Loki felt a little unreal: surely if his father meant for him to inherit the position of CEO, he would have said something earlier, in private?

“My son has shown himself competent in understanding how to lead a firm of this size, has shown insight in how to plan for the future and has the charm necessary to pull the whole firm behind him.” He looked at Thor as he placed a hand on his muscular shoulder and concluded, “Thor, nothing could make a father more proud than to see his son follow in his footsteps. Congratulations.”

There was a startled moment of silence before the first person began to clap. The rest fell in and Loki did his best to paste a congratulatory smile on his face. He had objections of course, but he could not air them here. He needed to wait for this meeting to end so he could speak to his father in private. Surely Thor would agree that he wasn’t the person most suited to leading the firm....

But Thor smiled that million-watt smile of his, placed his hand over Odin’s and said “Thank you, father, I’ll make sure you can continue to be proud of me. I will not let you down.”

Loki just sat there, trying his best to keep breathing.


	3. Out of the frying pan...

Later he had no idea how he had ended up back at his own office. He just sat at his desk and wondered how his life could have turned into such a mess so quickly. How could his father think Thor was capable of running Asgard? How could he not see that Thor was never present in his office if he could help it? That his older son cared nothing for the firm, only for the riches and possibilities that came with it?

He cursed himself for helping Thor, this weekend and all those times before. He should have just let the idiot make a fool of himself, then maybe father would have had his eyes opened. If Loki said anything now, it would seem as if he was just jealous and his pride rebeled against that. The pitying stares of his co-workers had been bad enough. Loki had ignored everyone after his father had departed with Thor and had just gone back to his office, closed the door and sagged into his chair.

His mobile rang and it was more habit than anything else that made him pick it up. The number showed as the doctor’s practice and he took the call and arranged for an appointment for tomorrow to go over the results of his bloodwork. And just because he was so sick of everything he let them place it in the afternoon. He hadn’t had a sickday and nary a day of vacation in the years he had worked here. Seeing as how nobody (meaning father) appreciated that fact, it couldn’t hurt his reputation to skip a day now.

This little act of rebellion couldn’t keep his mind from the more serious matter for long. His mind kept running circles around it and with every one of them he could feel himself growing bitterer.

It was in the middle of this mindset that Thor came in, huge grin on his face and dropping into the same chair he had occupied on friday. Just last friday, but it seemed ages ago. Today, Thor was no longer just his brother, he was his future boss.  
“Well, brother, won’t you congratulate me?” the older man said after Loki didn’t aknowledge his presence.

“Congratulations.” Loki said, tone sounding less celebratory and more like he wanted Thor to die, preferably in a very painful and slow way.

Thor seemed not to notice. “Father and I will work together for the next couple of months, passing on anything that could be important. I’ll be very busy and I don’t think I’ll have much time to drop by anymore.” When Loki didn’t reply, he frowned a little but went on. “Of course that will only last as long as father is still here. Afterward I’ll just delegate most things to the departmentheads, but don’t worry, I’ll stop by every week or so to sign what’s necessary. Management can take care of the rest.”

Boring bits done with, Thor’s grin became wider. “The company will have an official statement tomorrow for all the employees. There’ll be a reception too. You’re invited of course...”

“I won’t be here tomorrow,” Loki interrupted him. “Doctor’s appointment.”

Thor raised his shoulders, “I’m sure Mom and Dad will celebrate with us this weekend. You can still toast me then.” He winked at Loki before he stood back up, “Well, have to go, lots of well-wishers to meet. And of course my friends will want to celebrate with me tonight. See you later, brother.”

Loki watched him leave without another word. The mere thought of having to congratulate Thor in front of his parents made him sick. Well, Loki doubted that his brother would be CEO for long, not with that attitude. In the dog eat dog world that was global business, Asgard would crumble without good leadership and good leadership began at the top. It probably was too much to hope for that Thor would realize this before the water stood at his lips. Looking around his small office, Loki found that he had no intention of going down with the ship that had rejected him so thoroughly.


	4. ...and into the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

The waitingroom for his GP’s practice was a simple, yet tastefully decorated hall with several comfortable chairs and a low table that was littered with magazines and children’s books. The secretary’s desk was off to the side that stood closest to the door. Loki nodded at the medical assistant as he came in and chose a chair at random. Bennet was the family doctor and Loki had been coming here for as long as he could remember. Since he was about ten minutes early, he picked up a magazine to pass the time until his name was called and he walked into the office, shaking Derek’s hand.

“Loki, thank you for coming.” The doctor said, gesturing at the chair in front of his desk to take a seat. “I’m sorry for taking so much of your time, but I thought it would be better to talk to you about the results of your bloodwork face to face.”

Loki nodded, cautious. It never boded well if doctors wanted to talk to you face to face. His flu had probably turned into a lunginfection and he was going to get chastised for leaving it so long. Well, he had time to heal now, Odin had seen to it that he knew how little he was really needed at the firm.

“Your bloodwork showed clearly what I had been fearing from your symptoms.” Bennet went on, keeping his eyes trained on Loki. “I wish there was an easier way to say this, but..” He stopped a moment to run a hand through his hair before resuming. “You have ALL, Loki.” At Loki’s confused look, he sighed and explained. “ALL stands for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”

Loki sat up abruptly, eyes wide and feeling as if he had received his second cold shower in as many days. He opened and closed his mouth, but found he didn’t have the words to ask all the questions that popped up in his mind.

Bennet pulled a folder toward himself, taking out what were apparently the results of the bloodtest. “We did a bloodcell count and you have far more white bloodcells than is normal for a man of your age. That, combined with your fever, easy bruising and weight loss makes this the most logical conclusion. We will stil need to do a lumbar puncture to see how wide spread the cancer is. The good news is that considering the fact that you’re still very young and perfectly healthy in every other way, the chance that we can cure this is very high. The average rate of succes is 60 percent, but your chances are above that because you’re not even 30 yet.”

Loki swallowed, the words ‘leukemia’, ‘rate of succes’ and ‘not even 30 yet’ ghosting through his head too fast to understand. He had cancer. He wasn’t even 30 yet, and he had cancer. Of course, no need to make anything in his life easy.

Bennet removed his glasses, looking at Loki with a concerned frown. “I know it’s a lot to digest, but we’ll get you the best treatment possible. You’ll have to undergo chemotherapy I’m afraid, but after that someone in your family can provide healthy stem cells so we can have you back on your feet before you know it. I can have a look right now to see who is most compatible with you. After all, I have the rest of your family’s files right here. Let’s see...”

Some of Loki’s panic began to die down: his family could help him through this. They may not think him worthy of running the firm, but surely they wouldn’t want him to die. Not if they could do something about it. Certainly not mother. Loki prayed silently for the possibility that his calm and loving mother would be his closest match. His nerves made him resort to the childhood habbit of biting the side of his thumb.

“Odd, Thor’s bloodwork doesn’t match yours at all. We’ll have a look at your parents then...” the computerkeys clicked as other files were brought to the fore, but they didn’t seem to hold what the doctor expected. Loki felt his heart thump louder in his chest. Finally, Bennet sat back in his chair and folded his hands, gazing at Loki with something akin to pity in his eyes. “Loki, have your parents ever mentioned that they adopted you?”

The blackhaired young man gripped the armrests of his chair until his knuckles turned white. His heart pounded so hard now he feared it would rip itself from his chest. His first reaction was to cry: his eyes burned with the sting of tears, but they never got a chance to fall. In their stead bright-hot anger swept through every part of him. How dare they?! How dare they lie to him, use him, then sweep him so carelessly aside as if he were just one of their possesions? And maybe that was indeed all he was to them: another toy for Thor, another asset on the list of the firm.

The hot feeling vanished as fast as it had come, leaving him in a vacuum of calm and numbness. It was as if his brain could not cope with all these setbacks and froze his emotions before they could fully form. Instead it grasped on to the priority: getting better. He could deal with everything else later. He just had to take it step by step. Analyze it and see what course would be best. He was good at that, had been doing it for years in his position at Asgard.

“They never mentioned it.” He told Dr. Bennet in the calmest tone he could muster. And then on a whim: “What about Thor?”

The GP shook his head: “I’m sorry, you’re not related to him either. Thor is a perfect match for Odin and Frigga, but your genetics are completely different. Your best bet now is to find your birth certificate and see if you can locate your parents from that.”

Loki nodded. “And the rest of the treatment?”

“Chemotherapy, as I said. You’ll need several rounds as the treatment has three stages. The most important thing now is to do a biopsy on the fluid around your spinal cord to see how much the cancer has already affected. We’ll shedule that one for next week if that’s okay with you. You can ask Sylvia at reception for the appointment.” Bennet pulled several leaflets and folders from his drawers, then shoved the entire packet at Loki, “These contain all sorts of information. There are numbers in there you can call for whatever questions you have, or you could of course contact me.” He laid his hand over Loki’s and squeezed gently. “It’s a severe disease, my boy, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. You’re strong, you can win this.” After a last pat, Loki took the documentation, made the appointment and found himself standing back on the street, feeling the very opposite of strong.

Back at his apartment he thumped down on his sofa and put his head in his hands. His measure of calm was assailed on all sides: Thor would become CEO, Loki had cancer and his family wasn’t his family at all. ‘Strike three, you’re out’ a little voice in his mind whispered. The thought surprised a rather hysterical giggle out of him. Halfway though, it morphed into a harsh sob and then everything shattered and he just couldn’t stop crying.


	5. Finding a family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

The next morning, Loki blinked heavy eyelids open and groaned as the sun hit him full on. His muscles protested after a night spent on the sofa and the amount of tears he had shed left him with a blinding headache. He looked around groggily as he tried to strech his cramped muscles enough so that he could get up without running the risk of falling over.  
  
Apart from the physical discomfort, he was glad to notice that the crushing sadness had abated some. Or rather, it had morphed itself into the sheer determination that had always kept him going through the rough spots in his life. It was still better not to examine his feelings too closely, but it no longer kept him from thinking rationally.  
  
Picking himself up from the couch, he stumbled into the bathroom and showered, feeling his muscles relax as the hot water soothed them. His fever was also absent today, leaving him with a clear head. After towelling dry and dressing (plain clothes, since he wasn’t going into work today) he called in sick for the rest of the week and sat himself at his kitchencounter with some toast and the leukemia leaflets. They weren’t easy to read, though he now recognized a great many symptoms he had originally thought were brought on either by stress or his supposed flu.  
  
He decided almost immediately that he wouldn’t tell his family. Their was no gain in it and above all, Loki had always prided himself in solving his own problems. The last thing he needed now was to have others treat him as if he were made of glass, reducing his own sense of worth further. Besides: he needed to concentrate on a different family now: his birthmother and –father.  
  
Obtaining his birthcertificate without anyone knowing about it was laughably easy, since he knew exactly where it resided. He just had to determine the best time to go and get it. Thor, he knew, would be locked away with Odin for the next few weeks so the older man (not Father, never again Father) could hand all his knowledge down and the transfer from Asgard Senior to Asgard Junior could proceed fluently. All Loki needed to do was wait for the time when Frigga went to her weekly book club meeting. The 3 hours this took provided plenty of time to let himself into the house (he had his own key after all) and take the document from where it was stored in the safe along with all the other official family ones.  
  
Taking it to Odin’s home office, he copied it, put the original back and went on his way with no-one the wiser for it. He purposefuly didn’t read it until he was back in his own cosy appartment, curled up on his couch.  
  
He studied the paper, finding his birthdate was there and it was the one he had celebrated since he was little. Loki didn’t know if he should be grateful he had been allowed to keep this little thruth. The name of his mother didn’t ring any bells. Ella Farbauti. It sounded vaguely Scandinavian but not something he should recognize. Loki found himself thinking of her as blond and fair-skinned, much like Frigga.  
  
The name of his father on the other hand... Laufey Nal. This name he had encountered before, but in the end he had to google it to be able to place it. Laufey had been the CEO of Jotunheimr, the firm that had been Odin’s largest competition before it suddenly closed in the year before Loki had been born. The articles mentioned him as a solid man with a decent head for business. Loki could find only one picture which showed Laufey as a tall man with grey eyes and black hair. There was no mention at all of the reason of Jotunheimr’s downfall, lending the entire tale some mystery. Mystery that Loki’s experience in the corporate world told him was almost certain a cover-up for something.  
  
Deciding to look for his mother first, Loki opened a new tab in his browser, thanking the gods for internet and too much time watching detective-series in his youth. The birth certificate had the seal of the hospital where he was born on it, so chances were good that she was a local there. Using the online telephonebook for the area turned up nothing, but the householderdirectory supplied him with her social security number. He typed it in to google, opened the first related link and ... found a record of the Death Index Online. Ella Farbauti had passed away a mere two months after Loki had been born, no next of kin known.  
  
He stared at the record for a long time, strangely feeling nothing at all. Ella Farbauti was nothing but a name to him. Yes, she was his birthmother, but he had not known so until a few hours ago and no deeper connection had been made. He didn’t even have a picture of her.  
  
Finding one road closed to him, he went back to one of the articles he had found on Laufey. It mentioned the former businessman retiring to a small town in Finland. Loki jotted down the name of the place, then gnawed at his pencil in indecision. His family had betrayed him, he was expected to work under his idiot of a brother, he was ill (and it was still difficult to wrap his head around the fact that he had cancer). Really, there was nothing left for him here.  
  
A plan was beginning to nudge at the back of his mind, a way to combine all the things he needed to start over. The pay from his job hadn’t been bad and it wasn’t as if he had had much free time to spend any of it with the hours he had kept. There was more than enough to just pack up and leave, he could afford a new start in Finland. Surely they would have hospitals there and doctors who could treat him just as well as the ones that worked here.  
  
He wasn’t stupid enough to think that Laufey would just invite him in with open arms. He wouldn’t feel any kinship to him, a child he hadn’t seen except for (maybe) once at the very beginning of it’s life. But, being a businessman himself, maybe he wouldn’t be opposed to a trade. Loki knew everything there was to know about Asgard Enterprises and he knew that with Thor at the helm, the company would soon be losing a lot of ground on the market. Laufey could start his own company again and Loki could make sure it got every inch of ground back that it had once lost to Odin. He could make sure that they ran over a weakened Asgard and let Odin feel the pain they had both experienced at his hands. And the only thing he would ask in exchange would be those stemcells that he needed from his real father. It would be a good deal for both sides and if Laufey was anything like his son, he would grab it with both hands.


	6. Leaving home behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Of course, taking everything and leaving wasn’t as simple as it sounded. There was housing to deal with, making sure ends were tied up here, a local clinic in Finland to be found for his treatment, airplaneticket to be booked, stuff to be put in boxes and so much more.

Loki found himself hard-pressed to get everything done within the rest of his week’s sickleave. He contacted a real estate agency to sell his current appartment and to find him one he could rent in Porvoo, the town where Laufey had settled. It turned out to be quite a big community, located only 50 kilometers from the captital and the airport. The agency called him back two days later saying they had found a building that had been split into three appartments, the top one of which was up for rent. It had a single bedroom and a balcony that looked out on a river and Loki went in to do the paperwork on it that same day.

The next thing to be scratched off his to do-list was the acquiring of his flight. It would be a long one (8 hours and a half according to the touroperator) and he opted for an over-nighter since he had never had trouble with sleeping on a flight before. Unlike Thor, who was prone to constantly shifting in his chair or getting up to walk around even on short, national trips. Well, he wouldn’t trouble Loki on this trip. He ordered the ticket (one way only) and felt both freer and more agitated when he had done so. It was slowly seeping in that there was no turning back now, for better or for worse.

He had booked the plane for next Monday, bare hours after his appointment with a neurosurgeon that Dr Bennet had recommended to do the lumbar punction. He had called his GP earlier that day, explaining the situation and the older man had agreed to seek contact with the Helsinki hospital to notify them of the situation and send them the testresults as soon as he had them.

One of the hardest jobs though was to compose his letter of resignation. He had spent years helping to build Asgards’ strength, keeping it the most valued company on the market. They handled accounting and consulting for every major player on the global market, including giants like Stark Industries. It pained him to leave, but he knew it would pain him even more to see it go down if he stayed.

He adressed the letter to his father (as his direct supervisor) and kept it carefully void of his betrayed emotions, stating only that he resigned, effective immediately. Desiring to forgo any emotional outbursts, he planned to leave it with Mandy and clear out his office in the same go. This too he planned on Monday, thinking a clean break from it all was much to be preferred to having his ‘family’ trying to talk him out of things, acting like nothing much was wrong and everything could be fixed with some trite words.

This still left him with the celibatory dinner for Thor that his parents would hold on Sunday. He knew of course that he couldn’t avoid them the entire time before his move. Eventualy, Frigga would no longer let him hide behind the excuse of something simple as the flu and if he didn’t show up himself, she would certainly come over to bring him some food or just to see how he was doing. The only reason she had not done so already was because she knew how much her youngest hated having visitors when he was sick. Loki had to grin as he imagined the face his mother would make at a half-emptied appartment and carton boxes filled with his things everywhere. There was nothing for it: he would have to go to the party and pretend everything was fine. He could be gracious and careless for a few hours he decided as he got dressed, especially with the thought of resigning in the morning.

He drove to his parents’ house in the suburbs and parked on the driveway, next to Thor’s car. He called out a greeting as he entered, finding Thor with Odin and Frigga already sharing a drink in the livingroom. Caterers were laying the last hand on the dinner and Frigga offered Loki a glass of champagne. He took it with a smile, taking a small sip as he listened to Odin talk about how he wanted to take their mother for a second honeymoon next year.

The evening passed quickly while the conversation flowed from one theme to the next: smalltalk and stories of Thor and Loki’s youth were interspersed with businesstalk and plans for the future. It would have been pleasant if Loki had not known it for the lie it was and though no-one gave him reason for it, he felt like an outsider instead of a familymember. He was glad when Thor excused himself saying he would have an early day tomorrow and Loki grabbed the opportunity to take his leave as well.

Monday loomed big and with a sense of finality the next morning. Loki went into work later than usual, having first let in the movers to clear the boxes out and have them put on the same flight he would take that evening. When he arrived on the upper floor of Asgard, he smiled in greeting at Mandy who nodded and smiled back but was too busy on the phone to say anything. Entering his office, he just stood for a moment, letting his gaze wander over everything, remebering all the plans and hopes he’d had that would now not be realized. With a sigh he made himself move and spent the next hour sorting through paperwork, deciding what should go to whom for further handling. He made neat piles, labeled them and when he was content, he found a box and put his personal belongings in it. After he was done, the office looked as empty as Loki himself felt.

He had a last look around and made his way to Mandy’s desk, taking his letter (now folded and put in an envelope) and putting it on her desk. Mandy looked up at his familiar shadow, but the smile on her lips fell as she saw him standing there with his box of belongings and a letter that was adressed to Odin. It seemed like she was stumped for words, then she came around the desk and hugged him. It should have been a peculiar sight with her only comming up to the top of his chest, but Loki didn’t care: it felt nice.

Mandy squeezed him thight for a long moment, then took a step back. “Well,” she said around a sniffle, “Can’t say I blame you for it. Any idea what you’re going to do yet? I’m sure you have plenty of opportunities.”

Loki gave her a soft smile. “I’m looking into starting on my own.” He replied. It was close enough to the truth and Mandy had earned his honesty.

“I wish you the best of luck then.” She smiled, “Maybe I’ll come and work for you if things go downhill here.” She gave him a wink, then sighed and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll get your letter to your father. Don’t you be a stranger now, alright? I want to hear from you every now and then.”

“I will.” Loki promised, feeling touched by her concern. “Thank you, Mandy, for everything. I couldn’t have done half as much here without you.” She blushed and watched him go, giving a last wave as he disappeared into the elevator. Loki breathed deeply when he stood back outside: the first step was taken, he told himself, the rest would be easier.

And in a weird way it was: the lumbar puncture didn’t hurt much and even though he had to lie down until it was time for him to get to the airport and catch his flight, he didn’t get any of the headaches that could come with the procedure. His GP had arranged for a neurologist at the hospital to perform it and it was clear she had done this many times before. She promised to forward the results to Dr. Bennet, who would in turn call Loki to inform him.

The only side-effect he experienced was that he moved a bit stiffly when he went through the check-in on his flight. He handed over his suitcase before being allowed in the terminal, taking a seat at his gate with others while he waited to board. Closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair, Loki still felt empty, but it wasn’t an empty that comes when you miss something. It was more like the nice and clean empty you got after a rigorous bout of spring cleaning: all the old clutter had been removed and there was room for new and exciting things. There was a smile on his lips when they flew into the sunset.


	7. Where did we go wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

As he had done last week, Odin remained cloistered in his office with Thor from the start of the morning to lunchtime. They hardly even stopped for coffee and Odin felt as if his heart was lighter than it had been at any given point in the last few years. He looked at his golden son who was bent forward to have a better look at some of the data on the computerscreen and actively taking part in the company. He could not have hoped for a better outcome to his ploy.

Both he and his wife had worried about their eldest when it became clear that Thor wasn’t making any effort to grow up and settle down. He still partied like he was in college and spent little time on thinking about anything else. Odin had pretended not to notice in an effort to not pressure his son into things, but he knew exactly how much time his eldest was absent from his job. If it had been any other employee, Odin would have fired him or her ages ago, but he could hardly do so with his own son.

And so, when the time had come for him to retire, instead of putting Loki at the helm (which would have been the logical conclusion to his youngest’s hard work) Frigga and he had decided that to ground Thor, they would give him a responsibility big enough that he wouldn’t be able to duck it. Odin was confident this plan would work: Thor would get all the support he needed from his brother until he stood on his own feet at which time Loki could be made co-CEO so they could lead Asgard into a shining future together.

Frigga had initially expressed her concern at leaving Loki out of the presidency, stating it would be better if he didn’t have to wait and perhaps feel passed over, but he had convinced her of the necessity. After all, it would be easy for Thor to shove all the responsibility of his part of the role onto Loki - as the other CEO - and still be content that the firm would be handled while he continued on as he always had. If only Thor stood at the head, that wouldn’t be possible. He would explain everything to Loki after the innitial commotion of the boardmeeting died down, and despite it being shoved back due to Loki’s illness, he had resolved to speak to him tonight.

But first they needed to get through the afternoon. Asgard was hosting a party for it’s clients where they would introduce Thor formally as his successor. Odin had gone over the guestlist with him, explaining what services were rendered for which company. He hoped Thor would remember most of them and treat them with the respect due such great businessmen instead of clapping them on the back like his fratbuddies. Although the look on Tony Stark’s face if he did so would be priceless. Luckily they had Loki to handle Stark: Stark Industries was their biggest client, but they were very particular about who they worked with. After a rather rocky start, Pepper Pots (and even Tony himself it seemed) had approved of Loki as their accountmanager and he had been the only one handling them since then.

The party was to be held in a private room at a restaurant downtown. At noon, Odin and Thor left so they’d be there in time to shake hands with everyone. Pulling on his vest, he gave Thor a smile. “First public event, Thor, feeling ready?”

Thor gave a smile that was a little sheepish back. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. I just hope I don’t call anyone by the wrong name.”

“You’ll do fine. And besides, they’ll all have nametags.” Odin assured him, clapping his shoulder briefly. “Will you get Loki so we can drive together? I mailed him, so he should be ready to go. I’ll just check with Mandy if anything important came up this morning.” Thor nodded and they started down the corridor together, Odin stopping at Mandy’s desk and Thor continuing on to Loki’s office.

“Anything I missed that we need to know before we leave, dear?” he asked the woman who had been his secretary for 10 years now. Mandy didn’t look up from her computerscreen and Odin felt a little like she was giving him the cold shoulder as she handed him a single envelope. A little puzzled at her unusual behaviour, he tore the paper open and fished out the letter. He was nearly halfway through the first paragraph before his mind caught up to what he was reading. After he finished it, he had to reread it, so unwilling was he to believe the words that stood before him.

He looked up when Thor came back towards the desk with a puzzled expression. “Loki’s office is empty. Did you assign him a new one?”

“Your brother has resigned.” Odin said and winced at the disbelief and betrayal that came through in his own voice.

“Resigned?” Thor’s blue eyes widened, “But how? When? He didn’t say anything yesterday.”

Odin looked at Mandy. “When did he give you this?”

“Around 10,” she replied, fixing him with a stern gaze that told him clearly he had no-one but himself to blame.

“Did he say anything else?” Odin asked, desperate to hear a reason, any reason, that wasn’t Odin’s own neglect in speaking to his son before putting his plans into action. To let Loki know in advance what he wanted to achieve and to reassure him that it was through no failing of his son’s that Odin was handing the firm to Thor.

Mandy seemed to take pity on him when she saw the near-panic on her employer’s face. She knew him well enough by now to know he would never pull such a cruel trick on Loki without having a very good reason, but the way he had handled the situation left much to be desired. “He mentioned looking into a possibility to start a business of his own.”

Odin stood dazed for a moment longer, then fished in his pocket for his cellphone. He pressed the speeddial for Loki’s number, hoping that he could explain everything and that Loki would forgive him and come back.

_You’ve reached the voicemail of Loki Asgard. I can’t pick up right now, but leave a message and I’ll call you back._

“Loki? It’s me. I got your letter. Could you...” he swallowed hard before he managed to continue, “Could you call me back so we can talk about this? Thanks.”

“Voice mail?” Thor asked and Odin found himself nodding.

“We should go.” He said after a moment, “The party will be a bit harder to manage now, but there’s nothing for it. Leave your phone on, in case he calls you and not me.”

The party lasted far too long where Odin was concerned. He went through conversations on automatic pilot, smiling vaguely when people congratulated him with his upcomming retirement and unable to repeat anything of the conversation afterwards. He found himself stepping out a few times to call Loki again, but all he got was voicemail. He decided to go by the appartment as soon as he could with Frigga if his calls hadn’t been returned by the end of the reception. Thor would often throw him inquiring looks, but he just shook his head and they both soldiered on.

It was 7 pm when Odin (with Thor tagging along) finally arrived home. His phone hadn’t rung once and he found himself getting worried: it wasn’t like Loki to not check his messages for so long. Frigga’s greeting smile slipped when she saw his frown.

“Is something wrong? Were there problems at the party?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

“Loki resigned and he’s not picking up his phone.” Thor said, prompting Frigga to turn with a gasp toward Odin, eyes begging him to say it wasn’t true.

“We’re going to his appartment now.” Her husband said, grabbing her hands to reassure both of them. “I need to talk to him. You were right,” he sighed then, “I should have talked to him before doing anything.”

“You should have,” Frigga replied, but in spite of her hard words she put a comforting hand on his cheek, “but you’ll have the chance to explain everything now. Loki will forgive you when he hears the entirety of your plans, he’ll see why it had to be this way.” Thor frowned at this, being cut out of the loop, but he didn’t press for any clarification as they drive to Loki’s appartment.

It was a nice piece of property, entrancehall still in an old style and not without it’s charm. Odin and Thor both had a key to the place so they entered without a problem, catching the elevator to the fifth floor and emerging into the hall. Each floor had two appartments, with Loki’s being the one to the right. A woman stood outside of it, holding a bunch of papers and fiddling with a key.

“Hello!” she greeted them, “I didn’t know that anyone was comming so soon.”

“Soon?” Frigga asked, “I’m afraid you have the wrong appartment. My son lives here and we were just comming over for a visit.”

The woman looked them up and down a moment longer as if slightly doubtful of her explanation, then said. “You missed him by two hours. The appartment’s for sale.”

They gaped at her for ...quite some time, too stunned for anything else. Loki, it seemed, had not just resigned from the company, but from the rest of his life in New York as well. Thor was the first to recuperate: “Where did he go? Do you have any idea?”

The woman bit her lower lip, clearly debating to herself how much she should share with them if Loki himself did not tell them anything. Finally she seemed to come to a decision and Thor could see something like pity in her eyes. “He rented an appartment in Finland.”

And while Thor just repeated “Finland?” as if he’d never heard of the place before, Odin and Frigga shared a panicked look as they began toget the horrible feeling that being passed up in favor of Thor wasn’t the only motivation Loki had for moving away from them.


	8. Explanations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Odin had called the airport immediately, hoping to have enough time to ask them to stop Loki from boarding, but apparently the plane had already left. Odin had called Loki again and had growled in frustration to once more be relegated to the voicemail. Thor had tried as well, with similar results. Nothing remained but to go home and discuss a further strategy.

They drove back to the house in silence. Thor wasn’t as blind to the conversation that his parents were having without once opening their mouths as they seemed to think. The looks they gave eachother were filled with a kind of fear. They didn’t seem scared for Loki as much as they were scared for what this all could mean for their family. Thor didn’t understand any of it: it wasn’t like Loki to be so rash about things, not even such a big slight as being pushed aside in favour of his older brother. The Loki he knew would have gone to talk to their father, would patiently explain to him why making Thor CEO was a bad idea.

But he hadn’t. Instead he had given up on everything and everybody and had gone away. It was hard to believe that he had only seen Loki yesterday and had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He spoke up, startling Odin and Frigga. “I don’t understand why he would go to Finland of all places. What’s there for him? If he wanted to get away, he might just have moved over a few states.”

More silent looks between his parents until his mother narrowed her eyes at Odin and jerked her head in Thor’s direction. His father sighed and made eyecontact with Thor via the rearview mirror. “Laufey lives there.” He said, as if it explained anything.

“Who’s Laufey? What does he have to do with Loki moving to another continent?” Thor demanded hotly. He knew his parents were suffering too, but he didn’t understand any of it and he just wanted his brother back, so he lashed out at the closest thing he could target.

“I’ll explain everything when we get home.” Odin said firmly, closing the conversation for the moment. Thor let him, not wanting his father’s attention on anything but the road, but determined to get some answers the minute they had crossed the threshold. The moment the car stopped on the gravel driveway, he was out of it, storming to the door and opening it. He may have his faults (and he was smart enough to admit he had a lot of them) but he had always loved his brother even if he didn’t show it that much. “Well,” he asked of Odin when his father had just finished closing the door behind him.

“Thor, sit down please.” Odin sighed, not even bothering to lecture his eldest about his lack of respect in adressing them. “There’s something about Loki you should know.”

“What then?” Thor asked, throwing himself onto a chair and looking for all the world like a child with a temper tantrum.

“Loki isn’t ours, Thor, he was adopted.” Frigga spelled it out plainly, cutting to the chase. “We raised him as your brother and we love him as dearly as we do you, but he wasn’t born to us. And Laufey...”

“Laufey,” Odin took up the tale, swirling the tumbler of whiskey he had poured himself “is Loki’s real father and my former businessrival.”

“And why is he with us instead of with his real parents?” Thor asked.

“His mother came to me, a week or so after Loki had been born. She just showed up on our doorstep one evening and started yelling at us. How we had ruined her life, ruined her child’s life. Had taken his father away before he ever had the chance to get to know him.” Odin took a long pull before continuing. “We asked her to come inside: it was februari and it was freezing outside, not a good environment for such a small baby. And then we finally had the whole story.”

Odin closed his eyes and rubbed them tiredly with one hand. “I’m not proud of what I’m going to tell you now, Thor. Taking in Loki soothed some of my guilt for the part I had in it but it doesn’t change what I did.”

Thor watched as his father went to sit on the couch next to his mother as though needing to be close to her for comfort. Frigga herself was biting her lower lip, a frown on her face as she thought back to that night so long ago. Odin continued, eyes firmly on the whiskey in his hands. “When you were about two, Asgard was not yet the triving company it is now. We were still getting our bearings on the market and the competition was rough. Foremost under that competition was a firm named Jotunheimr which was lead by Laufey Nal. They had beaten us to several large clients a oouple of times and I started to think we would always lose out to them, always be number two in the playing field, when my chance came. One of their clients –for a reason I can no longer remember- needed to change accounting firms and ended up with us. I took the account myself, going through the files for the previous years that Jotunheimr had done to get a feel for the firm and what was important to them. And while doing so, I noticed several irregularities.”

“I began to dig deeper, crossreferencing and going back several years. In the end the conclusion filled me with great joy: the accounts had been frauded. The person who had managed the account at Jotunheim had allowed the company’s bosses to get away with several hundred thousand dollars, probably in exchange for a fair cut of it for himself. I finally had the means in hand to deal with my competitor once and for all.”

“I went to Laufey the next day, showing him the accounts and threatening to reveal everything in the media. It would ruin him utterly and his firm with it. Laufey was quiet for a long time afterwards, pale as he looked into the file I had brought. I gave him a choice then: have everything blow up on him, or leave quietly and never come back. I did not think at who else this would affect, of all the people who worked for Jotunheimr and would now loose their jobs. He took the only way out that he could: packed up and left, not only the city, but the country. He made sure all his employees were paid out and that his clients all got new accountingfirms to help them out and that was it. I know he moved to Finland, but that’s all I’ve heard of him in 29 years.”

“But, “ Thor protested, “Wouldn’t he have taken his girlfriend with him? You did allow him that option, didn’t you?”

His son sounded like he doubted his father had offered that kindness to his rival and it made Odin realise yet again how much he had failed everyone. “Of course I would have allowed that.” He burst out, angrier with himself than with Thor, “I’m not a total monster, though you may not believe me after this. The woman’s name was Ella Farbauti and she hadn’t known she was pregnant at the time of the closure. She was unwilling to leave everything behind when Laufey moved and her pride kept her here even when the signs became visible. Because of her pregnancy, no one else would employ her at the time and she lost her appartment. She ended up on the streets when none of her friends supported her. She was lucky to make it to a hospital when she had to give birth, but she couldn’t stay there for long and she wouldn’t go to a shelter. Instead she decided to take the child to us, saying that we had ruined her life, and we were now responsible for that of her son.”

“He was gorgeous.” Frigga cut in, eyes far away, “just the barest frizz of dark hair and those lively green eyes that couldn’t quite focus yet. He didn’t fuss the entire time he was here. Even if we hadn’t been responsible for what had happened to her, we couldn’t have let him suffer. We adopted him the very next day and Ella left without looking back or leaving any address. We haven’t heard from her since.”

Thor sat silently as he mulled all of it over. He had been too young at the time to realize his brother wasn’t really his brother and it had never occured to him to think it odd that Loki looked so different to the rest of the family. Just a throwback to an earlier relative he’d thought, and left it at that. Now he wondered if it could have made any difference if they’d learned about it sooner. If Thor had payed more attention to his brother instead of to parties and friends and getting drunk. “When were you goint to tell him?” he asked, thinking he already knew the answer to that.

“We weren’t.” Odin replied, looking slightly ashamed.

Frigga took over, trying to explain to her older son: “At first we wanted to, but only when he was old enough to understand. Certainly not before he turned 12. And then we kept postponing the age at which we thought he should know. From 12 to 16, to 18, to 21.” Her voice died away for a moment, before she resumed more strongly. “And then we didn’t want to tell him anymore. You hear about adopted children finding out about their real parents and going off to look for them all the time. We didn’t want him to go and find some other family and leave us. We were afraid he wouldn’t come back to us, to his real family. So we didn’t tell him, thinking he had everything here that he would ever want.” She brought a hand to her eyes, wiping at the sting of tears in them. “It was stupid, I know that now. We had no right to hide this from him, yet all we could see comming from telling him after all this time was hurt. And now look were it has taken us.” Frigga gave a quiet sob and buried her face in her hands.

Odin put away his empty glass and slung an arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulling her against his chest. He reached up to pat her hair with his free hand, murmering too quietly for Thor to pick up. They were quiet for a while, until Finally Thor broke the silence once more.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” Odin admitted and it was scary to hear those words come from him: Odin Asgard was known for always having a plan for every situation one could come up with. It was what made him so succesful in the business. “I honestly do not know.”


	9. Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

The flight to Helsinki airport was calm and Loki slept for almost the entirety of it. Still, when the stewardess woke him to put his seat back into an upright position, his mind felt fogged and groggy, like he had worked for 48 straight hours. He knew it was a side-effect from his illness, but that didn’t get him any more awake.

For now, he decided to focus on the important things, like getting admitted into the country and collecting the keys to his rented appartment. He collected his suitcase from the conveyor belt and went through customs, feeling grateful that security here was not quite as strenuous as back home. Or what used to be home, Loki couldn’t bring up the emotional strength to figure out how he felt about that at the moment. A quick glance at his cellphone showed about twenty-five messages from various members of his adoptive family which he likewise ignored, unwilling to analyze the dual jabs of betrayal and longing that they brought up.

He hailed a cab, giving the driver the address of the local branch of the real estate firm he had contracted to find an apartment in Porvoo. The driver, probably noticing his bleary state, was content to leave him in peace as he pulled out into traffic. Loki dozed on and off, seeing flashes of the landscape pass them by. Helsinki itself was bustling with the early working crowd, a crowd Loki had been part of in New York himself. They exited the city and drove along the highway until they reached Porvoo a small hour later. The cabbie seemed to have a perfect map of the city in his head and found their destination in no time at all.

Pulling up to the curb, he unloaded Loki’s suitcase from the trunk and wished him a good day in perfect – if a little accented – English. Loki smiled at him and included a generous tip to the fee, watching him take off before summoning his energy and turning to the real estate office. Normally they wouldn’t be open this early (only starting at ten) but they had assured Loki they would make an acception so he could come and pick up his keys. The apartment he was renting was only a few streets away, a good way to get a first look at the city he would live in for the forseeable future.

The door was opened for him as he walked up and a middle-aged gentlemen bid him enter.  
“Mister Asgard, I assume?” the man said, shaking his hand in greeting. “Tervetuloa, welcome in Porvoo. I hope you had a pleasant trip?”

“Very agreeable,” Loki replied, casting a look around the office. He didn’t know what he had expected, but apart from the language being foreign, the office didn’t look that different from the one in New York. “Thank you for opening early for me.”

“Our pleasure. My name is Timmo Hervonen. If you encounter any problems or have further questions about the apartment, please do not hesitate to call me.” He went to stand on the other side of the counter, picking up an envelope and opening it, placing the contents between them. “Here are the keys, plus spare copies. The small one is the one for your mailbox, you’ll find it in the main hallway. This is your contract, one copy for you and one for us. If you’ll just sign here and here.” Timmo pointed to two places on the last paper. “When you want to terminate the contract, we’ll need you to notify us a month in advance.”

Loki skimmed the contract quickly and signed in the appropriate places when all seemed in order. He returned the paper to the clerc, taking the keys and a stack of folders that turned out to be a map of the city and a leaflet with important numbers like the emergency number. He would look through the rest when he was more awake. He shook hands with Timmo and left to head for his appartment, following the route that had been headlighted in marker on the map.

The streets were cosy, houses in this area made in brightly coloured wood varying from a vivid red to a pale yellow or green. His suitcase was of the wheeled variety, making it easy to drag it along behind him and it only took him a short walk to reach his new home. His key turned smoothly in the lock of the front door and he dragged his luggage up the stairs, feeling drained when he arrived at the top. Flipping through his keys, he found the one that fit the door and opened it, rolling his suitcase inside before closing it again behind him. By then he was so tired that he left everything where it was, searched out the bedroom and let himself drift off on the bare matrass.

The next time he opened his eyes, the light in the room had decreased a lot and Loki did a quick check on his watch to see what the time was. He felt better than before, hungry even, and he decided to find a shop to stock his supplies. Hopefully there would be one in walking distance since he had sold his car along with everything else and would have to find a new one here. He washed up and changed his clothes before he headed out, making sure to take his roadmap.

The people on the street were friendly, nodding or smiling as they passed him and there were shops aplenty in his area. He bought the necessities, struggling just a little with the foreign currency. Back in his appartment, he did a little snooping around: the place had come furnished and his own things would arrive the next day. One of the things he dug up was a phonedirectory for the area. Thinking it couldn’t be this simple to find the man he had come so far for, he laughed out loud when he saw the simple entry under ‘Nal, L.’ complete with address and phonenumber. He quickly jotted it down on a piece of handy paper, checked his watch and decided it was too late to make a housecall now. Even discounting the late hour though, Loki was tired again and this was one conversation he wanted his full focus for.

 

The next day dawned overcast but dry. After he had accepted all his boxes from the movers, Loki had consulted his trusty roadmap to find the street the phonedirectory had provided for his biological father. It lay on the outskirt of the town, along one of the ways that meandered of the edges of the page. Seeing it before him now, the map had been right to put it at the edge of civilization. The driveway to Laufey’s property was long; leading into a stand of trees dense enough to obscure the actual house from view. What remeaned of the fence was faded in color and in places overgrown with ivy. Loki opened the slightly rusty gate and let himself in, walking over the gravelpath that was nearly overgrown with weeds and grass. Everything looked as though it had been years since someone had been there, except for tiretracks that had pushed the grass down in the direction of the house.

When he passed the last of the trees, the house stretched in front of him. It was as big as Odin and Frigga’s back in New York, sprawling on the grass, a porch running around it. Here too were traces of neglect, paint peeling in places and branches poking under the roof of the porch. Suddenly, Loki began to doubt the validity of his belief in his plan. Whoever lived here didn’t even care for their house, let alone a child they had never met before or a business gone 29 years ago. The copy of his birthcertificate felt heavy in his pocket and he hesitated in front of the steps leading up to the house.

The doubt lasted only a moment however: he had come too far to go back now. He had burned his bridges and needed to build new ones or he would drown in the middle with nowhere to go. Taking a deep breath he gathered his courage, set his jaw and walked up those three steps before knocking firmly on the wooden door.

He had to wait for a long time, just pondering trying again when he heard footsteps warily approaching from inside. “Kuka siellä on?”, a deep, scratchy voice questioned.

“Mister Nal ?” Loki asked in turn, not understanding the question posed of him.

The door opened and a tall, darkhaired man appeared in front of him. “American?” he asked, eyes taking a swift turn of the porch to see if Loki was the only one there. He frowned a little as he met Loki’s green eyes. “What do you want?”

Loki took a deep breath, told himself firmly it was too late to back down so late in the game and handed Laufey the birthcertificate. The older man’s frown deepened as he read it before his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. He looked from the paper to Loki and back to the paper. His expression softened a little, “You have the exact same shade of green eyes as your mother. How is Ella?”

“I never knew her, she died 2 months after I was born. I was adopted.” Loki said, then went on before Laufey could do anything more than give him a shocked stare, “My adopted family are the Asgards. I didn’t know I wasn’t theirs until very recently.”

Laufey looked enraged. “I’m sure Odin told all kinds of friendly stories about his former businessrival.” he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “I thought he’d taken everything from me that he could, but apparently I was wrong. What is it you want from me?”

“I want the same thing you want, I imagine: the downfall of Asgard Enterprises.” Loki answered. When Laufey looked doubtful, he explained further. “I worked at Asgard the past years, made my way up the ladder on my own strength. Odin shoved me aside though, leaving the business to his oldest, biological child. Thor is…let us say… supremely unsuited for the position. In fact he doesn’t even want it, but he took it anyway, expecting me to do all the work behind the scenes while he enjoyed the credit. I will not be used that way.” he ended, voice low and intense.

Laufey looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Then his eyes unfocused and he asked: “Do you know how I lost my firm, Loki Asgard?”

Loki flinched at the viciousness with which Laufey pronounced his last name. In that moment he was sure coming here had been a mistake, that his real father didn’t think he was worth any more than his adoptive father had, that Laufey hated him just for bearing the same last name as his nemesis. “I don’t know the details,” he managed, “but I know good businesses don’t close for nothing, and that Odin had something to do with it.”

“Oh, he had more than ‘something’ to do with it.” Laufey laughed, though there was no mirth in it. “He had everything to do with it. We were rivals, him and me, fighting covertly for the leader’s position in our part of the market. I had managed to get some clients from him, and he some of mine. Whilst reviewing one of those accounts, he found…irregularities."

Someone in my company had been an accomplice in a fraud for years. He brought me the evidence, demanding that I dismantle my firm or he would go public with it and ruin me.”

“If it had been any other name than the one that was signed on those accounts, I could have gotten out of it. I would have been reprimanded by the board of course, and the firm would have faced a very heavy fine, but we would have gotten through it. If only it had been any other name.”

“While I was the figurehead of Jotunheimr, I didn’t start the firm alone. My oldest friend went with me to the States and signed on as an accountant. I tried to give him a higher function, but he turned it down. It didn’t surprise me, Jarno never liked to make the big decisions. So while I managed the company, did a few smaller accounts and brought in new clients, Jarno handled the bigger companies. We were like brothers to eachother. And yet, it was his name on those accounts Odin brought in.”

Laufey’s eyes were pits of sadness, the betrayal still stinging after all those years. “It ripped the heart out of me, how he had betrayed not only me but our entire dream. The thing we had worked so hard for together. How could I fight Odin when all I wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up again? I settled the business, broke off every tie I had in New York and moved back here. I bought this piece of property and I’ve hardly been off of it in twenty-nine years.”

“We’ve both been betrayed by people we loved and thought of as family.” Laufey told him, eyes suddenly fixed in the present again, “Maybe it’s time we took a chance with our own family instead.” He extended his hand. “I’ll take that deal. Together, we may topple Odin yet.”

Loki looked at the hand offered to him, but didn’t take it yet. He needed to start this new relationship with honesty and that meant giving Laufey all the reasons for his being there. “There is one more thing I would ask.” He said, looking from his father’s hand to his face. “The reason I found out that Odin and Frigga are not my parents, is because I have leukemia and their genetic material didn’t match mine when they were screened as potential donors for stem cells.”

Laufey did not retract his hand, as Loki had feared, but used it instead to grip his shoulder. “Even if you were not here offering me this opportunity for revenge, I would not deny you a healthy future. Child of mine or not, I was always taught that it’s our duty as humans to help another when in need. If I’m a match for you, I’ll gladly be your donor.”

Loki sighed out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding, feeling the tension in his shoulders drain away.

Laufey squeezed his shoulder once, then pulled back. “I have some tea inside if you want. We have a lot to talk about it seems.” And when he turned around to go back inside, Loki followed.


	10. Building bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

The inside of Laufey’s house was not as dark and gloomy as the outside had suggested. Laufey could feel Loki following him along the hallway and into a spacious living area. Most of the furniture was made of wood, giving the entirety a homey feeling. The kitchen was seperated from the rest by a counter and Laufey took position on the kitchen end, rummaging around in cabinets to locate two clean mugs and sugar. He flipped on the kettle and then stood with his back to the fridge to observe his newly-discovered son.

Loki seemed content to just look around the living room, ocasionaly bending closer to inspect something. Laufey knew how it must come across to a stranger and for the first time felt a little ashamed of the cluttered state of his house. He was a man living alone with no real drive for anything and it showed in the mugs and glasses littered everywhere. There was very little in decoration: just the nicknacks the previous owners hadn’t taken with them and that he had not bothered removing.  
If he was really honest with himself, Laufey had to admit he hadn’t had any drive for the past 29 years, ever since Odin had forced his hand and taken all his dreams away. Maybe he would have done the same if he had been in the other’s position, but that was neither here not there. What was done, was done, and Laufey had to live with the consequences. Or not live, as had been the case: he’d turned down everyone who asked if he would like a job with them, bought a property with the money he had left after selling the company and paying the bills and he had retreated there. And stayed here. And had done nothing.

If he had been five, his parents would have called it a sulk.

As it was, the diagnosis was a serious case of depression which he had been unable to shake. Nothing interested him, certainly not taking medication or talking about it all. It had taken him years before he had crawled back up from the depths to which the depression had taken him, sliding first into apathy and then into fear. Fear that if he did undertake something else, that too would be taken from him. Fear that his past would continue to haunt him. Fear to trust most of all.

Would it have been different if Ella had come with him? Most certainly: he wouldn’t have let himself hide away if he had had a wife and a son to look after. He would have forced himself into counseling, or maybe he wouldn’t even have needed it if he had had something else to fill that gaping hole inside himself with. Loosing Ella had been at least as big a blow to his self-esteem as Jarno’s betrayal.

And now, unlooked for, his child had come to bring him back to the land of the living. The color of his eyes and their position screamed to him of Ella. Would Loki be interested in her? He hadn’t known her, not if she had indeed been dead for as long as the other said. Maybe to him, she was nothing more than a name on a paper. He struggled with the silence between them for a moment before he broke it.

“Would you like to see a picture of your mother?” Laufey asked, pouring the now boiling water into 2 mugs and sliding one of them across the counter. It was perhaps a stupid, sentimental question, but it was the first thing to pop into his mind.

Loki turned away from the winter landscape painting and came over to him, deftly preparing his tea. “I think I would like that.” He said, and to Laufey he sounded like he didn’t quite know himself how invested he wanted to become in getting to know his real family. It had to be a lot to take in: illness, parents that you didn’t know and traveling so far to meet with him. And that wasn’t even counting whatever Odin had done to him to drive him away.

Laufey gave him a little smile, feeling it pull at his mouth in a way he wasn’t used to anymore. He hadn’t had a reason for joy for as long as he could remember. He moved to the living area, unearthed a box from below several others and rummaged through it until he found the only picture he had of him and Ella, standing together in front on their offices during the celebration of a successful businessyear. They had their arms around eachother and were smiling, his chin leaning on her head. He smiled again, though it felt more sad than joyful, before heading back and handing the picture over.

Loki took it, cocking his head at it. A slight frown appeared between his eyebrows as his gaze roved over them, taking in every detail. Intrigued, perhaps despite himself. Laufey finished making his own tea and blew on it to cool it down, keeping his eyes firmly on this task in order to give his son a little privacy.

“What was she like?” Loki asked, gazing at him instead of the picture.

Oh, how was he ever to describe Ella to her son? She had always seemed to him to be impossible to catch in words, such a study in contrasts and layers. He sighed and sipped at his mug before giving it a try. “She was a free spirit, yet she loved New York so much that she didn’t want to leave it. She was proud and shy around new people. It would take her a while to open up to them. She was strong but sometimes she would cry at some cheesy movie. She used to be my private secretary and she was very capable.”

He turned fully to face Loki. “I was devastated when she didn’t want to come with me to Finland. I loved her, but she had made it clear she didn’t want our relationship to be publicly known. Ella was far too proud to be able to stand people whispering behind her back about how she had supposedly slept her way to the top. She never mentioned being pregnant: I would not have left her behind if she had.” He said the last with quiet insistence, not wanting Loki to think he had willingly abandoned them.

Those green eyes stared at him as if weighing him for a moment, then returned to the picture. Laufey decided they would have time for such loaded conversations later in their acquaintance and moved the topic to safer areas. Well, as safe as he could get while talking about the ruination of his son’s adoptive father.

“You said you wanted to bring down Asgard Enterprises. It will not be an easy thing to accomplish. They have all the high-end clients and we would be starting from scratch. It might take years before we even manage to establish ourselves on the same scale as they, let alone reel in some of their clients.”

“I can bring in some of his clients, it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks.” Loki said, carefully placing the picture back on the counter and taking a sip from his tea.

“You think you have a chance at taking clients away from Asgard?” Laufey asked, doubt clear in his voice. “Not to question your abilities, but it’s a very good firm, even I have to admit it.”

“It was a very good firm.” Loki said with a smile that was more sharklike than nice, “But the leadership has undergone a sudden change and not one that will inspire much confidence in the more business-savy costumers. Many of which I know personally. I have Pepper Pots on my speeddial: the Stark Industries account was too valuable to entrust to anyone else. They would be happy to switch companies if I gave her the word, especially after I took care of that little debacle with Mister Stark and the sportscar that he crashed into a restaurant fountain.”

Laufey pulled a face to show that he really didn’t need any details on that. Feeling his own sense for doing business was still very much up to par, he completed Loki’s reasoning, “And if others heard that Stark switched over… they would not be long in following.” He gave a shark-grin of his own. “You know, crazy as this plan sounds, it might actually work.” Laufey rummaged around in a drawer, digging up a piece of notepad and a pencil. His mind was buzzing with plans and possibilities and he jotted down names and numbers for the things he would have to take care of to see this venture started. “I’ll need a few days to talk to some people, see what we need to ‘open up shop’ as the saying goes. Where are you staying if I might ask?”

“I rent an apartment in Porvoo. I don’t have a phone yet, but I’ll give you my mobile number in case you need to reach me.” Loki said, putting his now-empty mug down.

Laufey nodded and pushed the piece of paper towards him, handing over the pen as well. Loki jotted down the number in a style that was quick but highly legible: something you learned early on as an accountant and that complimented his own hand. He had a quick moment in which he wondered if there was a gene for writing styles, before pulling the paper (now with both mobile phone number and address) back to himself. “Shall I give you my number as well?” he asked.

Loki shook his head, a slight blush just barely detectable on his cheeks. “I got your address from the phonebook. Your number was there too.” The young man admitted and Laufey couldn’t help but chuckle at that basic piece of resourcefulness. Until he remembered who he probably learned that attitude from. Betraying, thieving Odin. He must have scowled or something, because Loki looked at him as if he was searching for a polite way out of their conversation and Laufey couldn’t believe how similar he was reacting to how Laufey himself had after those big betrayals. Always thinking the worst of any situation.

Laufey took a steadying breath and gave his son a smile that was supposed to be reassuring. Considering how out of practice he was with smiling, he couldn’t be sure that the message actually got across. He decided to put both of them out of their misery: they could do with some times to process all the emotions of the afternoon. “How about you give me 4 days to make the necessary phonecalls and then I’ll get back to you?” he suggested.

Loki nodded, returning a smile of his own, but other than that it was polite and friendly, Laufey couldn’t read any other sentiment behind it. Still, Loki must have agreed with the plan of action because he offered: “I’ll call Stark Industries in that time and see if I can get a signed agreement by then.” He held out his hand and Laufey shook it. “Thank you for the tea, and … showing me that picture.”

“You’re most welcome.” Laufey said. Then, when another thought occurred to him: “Do you want me to drive you home?” He was a little disappointed when Loki shook his head.

“No, I don’t want to be impolite, but I’d rather walk home. I used to jog, but the leukaemia has made me too tired for that. Still, I need my fresh air or I’ll go crazy.”

“Very well.” Laufey said, accompanying Loki to the door. “Where are you treated? Helsinki?” At the younger man’s nod, he added: “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call me.” He doubted Loki would, since they were still basically little more than strangers to eachother, but he couldn’t not make the offer. If it were him, he’d have felt better just knowing the option was there.

After a final handshake, he watched Loki disappear into the trees. The sunlight shone through a crack in the clouds and Laufey realized with a start that for the first time in years, the world didn’t just pass his house by anymore. He was, for better of for worse, a part of it again.


	11. Chemo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Loki was slightly over half-way to his apartment again when his mobile rang. He gave a quick glance at the caller-ID and picked up when the number went unrecognised. “Loki.” He said, answering.  
  
An accented woman’s voice greeted him on the other end. “Good day, Mister Asgard.” Loki flinched slightly at the mention of a last name he felt didn’t belong to him anymore. “My name is Cecilia Barlund. Doctor Bennet has asked me to take over your case after you moved here.” Without waiting for Loki to reply, she went on: “I have received the results on your spinal tap and they are quite good. No infection has reached into your spine yet.  
  
Loki let out a deep-felt sigh of relief. It was the first break he had had in weeks and it would drastically improve his chances for survival. “That’s the best news I’ve ever had. Thank you.”  
  
“The best news you’ll ever have is hearing your leukaemia is cured.” Cecilia countered, but her voice was friendly. “Let’s make sure that happens, alright? Considering you were diagnosed relatively late, we would like to start your chemotherapy as fast as possible.” A rustle of papers as she checked a calendar, “There is actually an open spot tomorrow if that suits you.”  
  
Loki licked his lips nervously: the chemo would make the disease real. He had read the flyers and the websites, knew what to expect to a certain degree, but it had still not been his disease. It had been something that had made a lot of other people suffer and in worse cases even die. His mind had shied away from it, deep down it had refused to accept there was anything wrong with him that went beyond headaches and fever and weariness. So when the chemo was mentioned in the same sentence as ‘tomorrow’, part of his mind scurried to find a safe, dark place to curl up and gibber denial. No, no, he wasn’t free tomorrow, try again next week or, even better, next year.  
  
Of course he realized that was impossible: he needed the treatment, needed it to simply stay alive. And the sooner they got started, the better his chances would be. No sense in waiting while the cancer sunk it’s claws deeper into his flesh and bones. He wanted it out: it wasn’t a part of him and he wouldn’t allow it to take him as it had so many others. Loki was a fighter: he gave his everything in all that he attempted. He would simply have to move past his terror and fight harder than he ever had before.  
  
“Tomorrow is fine.” He replied. He would have a few days to get over the side-effects from the therapy and would probably still have a moment to call Tony Stark and explain the situation to him. Everything would work out in the end, he promised himself.  
  
“Good,” Dr Barlund said, sounding pleased that he was taking this serious, “I’m putting your name down for it. Please be here by 10 and register at the front desk. They will get you to the right place. I will explain everything before we start. Feel free to bring something to keep you busy: it takes about 6 to 7 hours for the chemo to be administered. You’ll be allowed home after that, but we recommend you don’t try driving yourself.”  
  
“I’ll be there. Thank you for calling so soon.”  
  
“It was my pleasure, Mister Asgard.” Cecilia sounded reassuring, “We’ll do everything we can to get you through this. I will talk to you in person tomorrow. For now, please try and get a good night’s rest. Goodbye.”  
  
The conversation was ended and Loki put his phone back into his jacket’s pocket. Dr Barlund’s advice was sound of course. Chemotherapy was very tiring for the patient and he’d need as much rest as he could get.  
  
The next day he arrived at the hospital 20 minutes early. The busride had been smooth and on time with the hospital as a clearly marked station. Finding the entrance had been a little work, since the signs were both in what he supposed was Finnish and Swedish, neither of them languages that Loki understood. He was glad that the cleric who greeted him at the front desk had no problem in understanding him.  
  
“Mister Asgard,” she greeted, pulling several forms together in a bundle before sliding them over the counter at him. “I’m Kaisa. You’ll need to fill out these forms before I can walk you to Doctor Barlund’s office. Next time you’re here, you can go there immediately.”  
  
Loki nodded, taking a seat on one of the waiting chairs she indicated for him. The forms were just standard (and in english to boot) and he made quick work of them, providing the hospital with his contact information and signing the agreement. When he stood back up, Kaisa ended her phonecall and came around the counter, motioning for him to follow. They traversed a few corridors, but the way wasn’t very difficult and Loki was pretty sure he would be able to navigate them on further visits.  
  
Kaisa left him at a door with Doctor Barlund’s name on it. She knocked, gave him a smile and went back to her front desk. Loki didn’t get much time to watch her go, since the door was opened quickly and another woman stood before him. She had a no-nonsense face with grey eyes and darkblond hair, although she wasn’t big in stature, nearly a head smaller than Loki himself. When she saw him standing there, she extended her hand.  
  
“Mister Asgard, I assume. My name is Cecilia Barlund. We’ll be seeing a lot of eachother in the comming months.”  
  
“Please, call me Loki.” He said, shaking on it. “And I suppose we will.” He followed her inside the cancer ward. It consisted of a doctor’s office, waiting room and a room of to the side where he could discern two people, sitting in large chairs with machines whirring away at their sides. One of them was completely bald, despite the fact he estimated him around 40 and Loki felt a stab of anxiety. Docotr Barlund led him into her office and pointed to a chair. She grabbed a file from a cart in the back and put it on her desk before seating herself.  
  
“Your values are all stable at the moment.” She said, quickly flipping through the papers of the file, “So we can start with the chemo today.” She closed the map, redirecting her gaze at Loki and continued. “There are three stages in this treatment. The first one is called Induction and it takes only one session. There will be 2 sessions after that which together are called the Consolidation-phase. The final treatments are for making sure the cancer stays away. I’m sorry to say that by the end of this process, your imunesystem will be in ruins: unfortunately it’s necesary to be able to build it up again with new stemcells.”  
  
“Today’s treatment also consists of three parts: you’ll get pre-meds, then the actual chemo and finally we’ll give you some fluids to keep dehydration from setting in. It’s important that you drink a lot, even thoug it may be against your usual rhythem. The consequences of not doing so will be far worse and you don’t need them with all the other possible side-effects the chemo already causes. Fatigue is the one that occurs with most people, but many of them also suffer from nausea, loss of apetite or digestive problems, vomiting and/or dhiarrea and the most noticeable one: hair loss. Not all of them occur for everyone and the ones that affect you might be different after each session. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask or you can call the ward here if you’re at home.”  
  
Doctor Barlund paused for a moment before continuing: “As a foreigner here, I feel I must ask: do you have anyone here that could stay with you for the first days after your treatment? It will be difficult to even go to your kitchen to get food at that time, let alone do anything else. It will not be as big a problem the first session, but if you don’t have anyone, I reccomend you ask social services to send someone by to make sure the basics are covered. It is also possible that you ask to be admitted here for a three-day stay if you prefer that to the social services.” She looked at him, waiting for an answer.  
  
“I, uhm, I’ll have to make arrangements for next time. I don’t have anyone here at the moment.” Loki said, mentally flitting through his options. He could not ask Laufey: whatever they had wasn’t strong enough to ask him to look after a sick person that was practically a stranger. Odin, Frigga and Thor were out of the question and Tony could barely be trusted to take care of himself, let alone someone else. He would have to call on social services then, even though it galled him to let anyone see him in a less-than-perfect state. If so much stress was placed on it, it was surely important and he wouldn’t do anything to risk his health further.  
  
Doctor Barlund nodded, then stood back up and lead him to the treatment-area. A male nurse joined them, taking Loki’s pack and putting it within easy reach of his appointed chair. “I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Matti, then. If there’s anything at all, don’t be afraid to ask.” She squeezed his shoulder gently and departed to do her rounds.  
  
“First time, right?” the nurse asked and Loki nodded. Matti’s english wasn’t as fluent as Cecilia’s, but he was obviously making an effort to ensure that his patient felt comfortable with what was happening. “Don’t worry, the treatment itself doesn’t hurt.” He motioned for Loki to take a seat as he hung up a bag with a clear liquid. “These are fluids and pre-meds, mostly against nausea. When the bag is empty, the machine will beep and blink and I’ll come and hook up the real chemo. Arm, please.” Loki extended his left arm, had a place swabbed clean and then the needle slid into his vein with the barest of twinges. “You need to keep this arm as still as possible.” A few pieces of tape were administered to keep it firmly in place and then the bag was connected via a tube. Matti arranged the speed of the drip, double-checked the entire setup and then exused himself to go see to other duties, leaving Loki alone.  
  
That was the start of a very dull 7 hours. Loki wasn’t alone in the room, but the 40 –something year old man dozed for most of his own procedure and the other woman was around 60 and didn’t understand English, so the few moments of attempted communication ended rather fast. Loki turned to the work he had brought along: trying to decide the best way to jump-start the firm and get Stark Industries to switch firms. He wasn’t too worried on that account: Loki knew the entire business inside and out and to train someone else would take a lot of time and money.  
  
During this, his machine beeped and Matti came to change the empty fluids bag with a green-coloured one. Loki forced himself to keep working for another two hours, but then he had done everything he could think of and found himself dozing slightly for the rest of the time in the quite comfortable chair. He occasionaly woke up, seeing the bag grow emptier each time. Lunch was brought and finished, he sipped water from a glass, the man was let go and the woman had disappeared somewhat earlier. Finally his own machine beeped again and he looked up to find the bag empy above him. A few moments later, Matti arrived to unhook him, carefully removed the needle and bandaged the punture. Loki was asked to wait until Doctor Barlund had another look at him before he could be discharged.  
  
When she came to sit by him, she cut straight to the chase. “You look pretty good. How do you feel.”  
  
“Not too bad, mostly just stiff from sitting so long.”  
  
She smiled and pulled out some more papers. “The chemo takes some time to sweep through, especially on the first treatment. Here is the contactinformation for the hospital in general and the cancer ward specifically. If you have any questions, the desk is manned day and night. Also, if any of your side effects last for more than a few days, call. We can prescribe you medication, but we need to know what will manifest before we can give it. You’ll probably be tired and feverish for a few days: have plenty of rest and fluids: it helps to get the chemicals from your body faster. You can drink coffee or coke, but no more than 4 glasses a day.” She dug around in her pocket for a moment before comming up with a bag of hard lemon candy. “For being such a good patient.” she said and at Loki’s incredulous look she laughed and continued, “Actually, they help for some people to combat nausea on the way home.”  
  
He grinned and accepted the package, feeling for all the world like a little child that was rewarded for good behaviour at the dentist. They pinned down his next appointment (28 days from then) and then she checked him out at the front desk, wishing him good luck before going back to her other work. Loki waited patiently for his bus and gratefuly settled himself into a seat to begin the trip back to Porvoo.  
  
His phone vibrating in his pocket got him awake again and he fished it out. The past few days he hadn’t bothered to check it, since the only people who called were Thor, Odin and Frigga and they would be relegated to voicemail. The image that appeared on his phone this time was the logo of Stark Industries and the name of its owner, Tony Stark.  
  
While having been good friends for quite some time now, Loki and Tony’s friendship hadn’t been an ‘on first sight’ thing. In fact he still vividly remembered the first time he had met Tony and Pepper when they were trying to get Stark Industries as a new client.  
  
 _Loki took the businesscards, giving Pepper’s a glance and then flipping to Stark’s, eyes going slightly wide. Instead of the company logo, it featured a smiley face with Tony’s name beside it. Where normally it would claim him to be Stark Industries’ CEO, here his position was given with four words ‘Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist’._  
  
 _Loki couldn’t contain a chuckle before looking back up in time to see Miss Potts give Tony a silent but harsh slap on his forearm. “What? “ Tony defended himself, “he laughed, didn’t he? Normal businesscards are boring. I can make some for you too. We could have them read ‘Kickass Assistant’ or something.” Pepper gave him a look that clearly said he would face something very unpleasant if he ever touched her card and then turned back to Loki while Tony Stark slouched in his chair._  
  
He had landed the contract for Asgard, but had had his reservations about their CEO. His carefree manner reminded him too much of his brother. And while he loved Thor, he also found himself very frustrated with him most of the time. Most of his early interactions on their behalf were with Pepper and the two of them got along really well. It wasn’t until Tony Stark called him personally one sunny Friday afternoon that Loki had his opinion revised.  
  
 _Tony had requested his personal presence at a restaurant that catered to the wealthier citizens and businessmen brokering deals over pricey lunches. Loki’s first guess therefore had been that Stark needed his opinion on some finance-questions. Upon his arrival he had found Tony’s car in the middle of the restaurant’s fountain and Tony himself sitting on it’s hood, listening with a carefree attitude to the owner who was shouting at him very loudly.  
  
Loki sighed and walked over, greeted Stark and then applied every bit of his knowledge of law and his natural way with words and flattery to convince the owner not to press charges. The compensation he negotiated was lower than it could have been and Stark smiled and slapped him on the back as he helped him back onto dry land. “Knew we did the right thing by hiring you.” The older man remarked, “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner. But not here.” He added, noticing the still furious look of the manager.  
  
Tony took him to another restaurant and ordered them loads of food and they started talking. It turned out Stark hadn’t been drunk when he crashed the car (which would have been Loki’s first idea, judging from the man’s image in the media) but had fallen asleep at the wheel. His latest project had kept him up several nights and Loki had been fascinated by the explanations about a new powersource called an arc-reactor that could create safe and clean energy for the future._  
  
These ‘dinner dates’ -as Tony insisted on calling them- became a regular fixture for them. They genuinely enjoyed eachother’s company and conversation. On top of that, they were both ambitious individuals who were eager to show the world they had more to their name than their respective fathers’ fame and fortune. It was nice to hear him again and Loki found himself smiling as he answered the call with a cheerful “Hello, Tony.”  
  
“Don’t ‘Hello, Tony’ me!” the voice on the other end sounded unhappy, “Asgard has changed our filemanager. You are no longer my filemanager. Why are you no longer my filemanager? Cause I filed a complaint, you know. It took this new guy 5 hours to find me a simple document. And then he couldn’t answer my questions. You always answer my questions!” Tony’s voice was ridiculously close to a whine as he finished his tirade.  
  
Loki made a quick calculation: it was almost half past 6 here, which meant it was nearly noon in New York and Tony would be awake long enough to be bothered with real-world facts. “I’m sorry, Tony, I meant to call you about this as soon as I had some more info for you.”  
  
Tony made an impatient noise, before interrupting. “So, did they put you in a higher function now that Thor is going to be CEO? And what’s with that anyway, ‘cause I was sure that if your old man ever stepped down, it wouldn’t be in favour of a guy that isn’t even present half of the time. So, what did he give you?”  
  
Loki chewed on his cheek while he listened to Tony’s enthousiastic raving. The pain of being passed over stabbed in his heart again and his sigh must have tipped Tony of because the other end of the line went uncharacteristically silent. “Nothing, Tony, he gave me nothing.”  
  
“What did you do?” Tony asked, “Because I know you, Loki, and I bet you did something drastic.”  
  
“I quit.” Loki whispered, though to him it had been a logical step at the time, not an over-the-top one as Tony was suggesting. But then again, Tony didn’t know about the rest of the circumstances.  
  
“You quit.” Tony reprised and then in true Tony-fashion. “Actually, that’s not so bad! You can come and work for me. I’ll give you your own department and we can do the accounting and stuff internally instead of outsourcing it. It’ll be fun! Your office could be next to mine and Pepper’s. I’ll come and pick you up for dinner and we can baptise it with champagne and sushi.”  
  
Loki laughed at the mental picture that summoned in his head. “Oh Tony, I’m extremely grateful for the offer, but we both know I’ve always dreamt of having my own firm one day. Now that it can’t be Asgard, I’m starting on my own, away from Odin and Thor.”  
  
“When you say, away, just how ‘away’ do you mean?” Tony hedged.  
  
“I’m in Finland, Tony.” Loki said. Tony knew him very, very well it seemed if he could figure out that Loki had meant more than just ‘on the other side of the city’ without any clues from him.  
  
“Finland.” Tony said, drawing the name out. “Yeah, you see, I don’t think you need to go quite that far. Your father can’t stop you from doing what you want and it’s his own fault for not giving that CEO-position to you in the first place.”  
  
Best let Tony in on the other stuff too, because now he was making him feel like a small child throwing a tantrum. “Odin’s not my father, he lied to me Tony. That’s why he gave it to Thor. Of course he’d want his real son to have his company, I should be lucky that I had as good a position there as I did.”  
  
“Hey, mister,” Tony growled, “You earned that position. Or do you think I would just let anybody touch my firm’s accounts? Did Odin tell you that was the reason? Because if he did I’ll ...” his friend couldn’t quite finish that sentence, but Loki appreciated the concern it displayed for him.  
  
“No, he didn’t. I found out by accident. I don’t know if he even figured out that I know yet. I didn’t exactly talk to him before I left. That’s why I came to Finland, to find my real father. He used to be Odin’s big rival.”  
  
“Are you telling me that you’re going to start a new firm with your real dad, who used to be Odin’s nemesis?” Tony said, disbelief colouring his words, “Because that sounds like something from a movie. I should have JARVIS write a script for it and sell it to Universal.”  
  
“Sadly, “ Loki snarked back, “this is now my life. At least I’m interesting, right?”  
  
“You’re always interesting, “ Tony chided, “and you have my full support in anything you choose to do, have done, whatever. It’s just: if this is much for me to take in, I can only imagine what it would be like for you.”  
  
“That’s not the end of it.” Loki said, anger leaving him as soon as it had come. He decided to tell Tony everything. It felt good to get it of his chest, to finally talk to someone he trusted about all this stuff. “The reason I found out about my father was because I have leukemea.”  
  
“And you needed stem cells and none of your supposed family was a match.” Tony concluded.  
  
Loki felt ridiculously grateful for not having to explain everything. He could just say the important bit and know that Tony would fill in the rest. “Something like that, yes. I’ve met my father and he has agreed to donate to me in exchange for help in getting back at Odin.”  
  
Tony sighed. “Loki, I’m so sorry. How...how bad is it?”  
  
“It could be worse,” Loki said, “I’ve had my first session of chemo today and so far so good. I’m tired but that seems to be the worst of it.”  
  
“Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it staying that way,” Tony muttered, “Talking about staying...Where are you staying? Do you live with your dad?”  
  
“Of course, Tony. Because everyone loves it when there’s suddenly a complete stranger on their doorstep, claiming to be their long lost child and by the way, could they move in?” This earned him a laugh. “I’m renting an appartment in Porvoo.”  
  
“If you need anything: furniture or recomendations or money, just call, okay? I know you’re a big boy and you can take care of yourself but...” Tony fell silent for a moment before ralying. ”But you’re my friend, so yeah, anything you need, you call me.”  
  
A warm feeling passed through Loki and he closed his eyes a moment, feeling like his heart was going to leap from his chest. For Tony to call anyone a friend was a Big Thing. He had the worst case of commitment fear that Loki had ever seen. Even Pepper, who he would move the world for, was just ‘his assistant’. To the general masses it was one of the man’s many quirks, but to those who knew him well it betrayed the underlying vulnerability that Tony was terrified that they would leave him one day. “You’re my friend too, Tony.” He said gently. They were both silent for a while, busy with their own thoughts.  
  
Tony was the first one to break it, and Loki could hear Pepper in the back. “I have to go, lunchbreak is over and Pepper is here with a whole pile of documents that need my signature. Think about my offer, alright? And call me as soon as you have a firm to transfer my account to!”  
  
“I will, Tony. Thank you for everything.”  
  
“See you soon, alright. Bye, Loki.”  
  
“I’ll call.” Loki promised, “Bye.” He disconnected, feeling lighter now that one of his worries had been scratched off the list. He hadn’t really doubted that Tony would follow him, but he had felt rather bad thinking he would have to talk him into switching sides. He hadn’t wanted to manipulate his friend like that. The fact that Tony had offered of his own free will had solved this quite nicely.  
  
He dozed for the rest of the trip, feeling the promised fatigue get a hold on his muscles. By the time he let himself into his appartment, he felt like he would fall asleep standing up and he barely got changed before tumbling into bed and closing his eyes. He was out like a light not 5 minutes later.  
  
He jerked awake several hours later, his stomach doing it’s very best to empty itself. Cursing, Loki made his way to the bathroom. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up harshly. When everything he had eaten that day had been expelled, he continued to dry heave until he felt tears leaking down his cheeks. Eventually, his stomach calmed a little and he could wipe at his tears and pull himself upright to get a glass of water from the sink to rinse the awefull taste from his mouth. Trying to swallow several mouthfuls to ease his throat proved unwise, as it sent him back to the toilet for another bout of sickness.  
  
He spent the rest of the night that way: being sick and having some time to recover, but not long enough to go back to bed. After two hours of this, fatigue and illness combined to have him shivering on the towel he had put down to cover the tiles. He had taken the comforter from his bed to wrap around himself, but it failed utterly to make him feel warmer.  
  
By the time dawn started to lighten the inside of the appartment, Loki was a mess. He was just so cold, shivering hard enough that it seemed as if he was shaking apart at the seams. Loki felt as if the next ice age had taken up residence in his spine and was sending tendrils from there to the rest of his body. He needed something hot to warm him up, but he didn’t dare drink any tea because it would inevitably come back out and he was so tired of sitting by the toilet and throwing up. It felt like he hadn’t done anything else for at least a lifetime or two: too hot skin on too cold tiles (the towel wasn’t helping) and gods but he needed to buy a rug to put there just to make that part of the process slightly more bearable.  
  
He grabbed the down comforter and pulled it more firmly around himself, curling in thight in that millenia-old instinct of all mankind to deal with pain and suffering. It was all hopeless, how had he thought that he could get through this by himself? How did people live with this, session after session, knowing it would only bring them more suffering and misery?  
  
He had grabbed his phone along with his comforter to serve as a clock and now he fumbled for it, hating how pathetic it made him feel but needing a familiar and loved voice all the same. Thumbing through his voicemail, he found one from Frigga and let it play.  
  
 _Loki? Loki, it’s mother._ Her voice washed over him and he sighed. _I understand that you’re mad at us. That’s alright, we deserve it. But baby, please let us at least know that you are alright._ She sounded worried, exactly as she would have been if she were present now. He imagined her fingers stroking his hair away from his sweat-soaked forehead as he leaned an overly hot cheeck against the cool side of the bathroom cabinet. _I miss you, Loki. Please come home._ He replayed the message several times, ignoring the words in favor of soaking in the comfort of just hearing her, slowly dozing of with his mother’s voice calming him.


	12. F(l)ailing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Thor sighed as he put his head down on the desk. He was using his lunchbreak to avoid all the disappointed looks. It was quite a new experience really: because Thor had never accepted responsibility, he had never had the chance to let people down before. Who knew he would get so good at it in so little time?  
  
The office he was in now was not his own but Loki’s. He had come here in the hope that maybe some of his brother’s cleverness had stayed behind in the empty room and that it would help him figure out a plan of action. That all the love and devotion Loki had put into his job on a daily basis would pour into Thor if he sat there long enough. So far he had had no luck in that particular department, but he did feel a little closer to his brother. It occured to him that even with his own frequent absences, he had seen Loki here more than outside of the firm. Yet something else he was no good at: being a brother. Maybe if he had been better at that, Loki would have come to talk to him before deciding that moving away was the best solution.  
  
It had been two weeks since Loki had left, putting an ocean and half a continent between them. Thor knew his brother had to be (putting it mildly) upset about everything that had happened. He would be upset too and he had always been the more laid-back out of the two of them. It had severely shaken Thor’s belief in their parents as well and though they saw eachother every day, he felt like a distance had opened between them that hadn’t been there before.  
  
Odin hadn’t set foot inside the building since the night of Loki’s resignation, preferring to stay at home with Frigga and comfort her. His mother was having none of it, though. While his father thought it best they waited for Loki to cool down and contact them himself, his mother was of the firm opinion that waiting was what had landed them into this situation in the first place. Thor also suspected she couldn’t live with the idea of her youngest son believing they didn’t love him. Or worse: that Loki didn’t love them anymore.  
  
Thor knew it wasn’t very fair of him but he felt forsaken by his father. They had only spent a week going over all the things Thor should know to run the company and it was not nearly enough to keep Asgard running by himself. He didn’t want to bother his father with work when he could see he needed time with his mother to repair the cracks in their relationship, but that left him floundering in all the things that came up on a daily basis.  
  
Like the time when the new accountmanager for Stark Industries had requested a meeting with him, saying he had had Tony Stark himself on the line and that he hadn’t been able to help him. Needless to say, Stark had not been impressed. It wasn’t the accountant’s fault really: the file was huge since it comprised not only the headquarters in the USA, but also all the smaller daughter-firms in varied parts of the world, all with their own rules on how they should be submitted to the local accounting instances. No-one could have read the entire file in one week, but that was an internal problem and not one that their client should suffer for. Mistakes like that were bad for business, even he knew that much. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to solve the problem so he had handed it over to the head of the department in question. Who had (of course) given him one of those disappointed looks.  
  
Though none of them had said it out loud – not where Thor could hear them anyway – he knew the look went mostly accompanied by a thought: ‘Loki would have known what to do’.  
  
He should have never accepted that thrice cursed CEO-position. So much trouble would have been avoided if he had just told his father the truth: he wasn’t ready for it and maybe he never would be. Business didn’t come as natural to him as it did to his father and brother and at one point while growing up he had just given up on the whole trying-to-keep-up-with-his-brilliant-brother thing. He was going to end up second in that race anyway, no matter how hard he struggled. If only his father had been more accepting when Thor had hinted at his desire to do something else than accounting...  
  
If Thor had his wish, he would march to Finland, give the job to his brother (who was good at it and who liked it) and would then be free to go his own way. Maybe he could go into computers, he had always liked tinkering around with them.  
  
Meanwhile, it was still lunchbreak and Thor was still stuck. He took the letter Mandy had given him before she went out for lunch and let his eyes skip over the contents one more time. It hadn’t changed from the previous times he had read it, informing him (in no uncertain terms) that Stark Industries wished to thank them for services rendered but they would be moving their account to a different firm. And would they please have their file ready to be picked up in a week’s time so they could transfer it to Jotunheim Accounting.  
  
There was no way around it: Thor would have to bring this to his father. He would have to step up to him and inform him that he had failed. And then he would be able to see that wonderful look of disappointment there too.  
  
The rest of the day went too fast, with problems building left and right and Thor doing what he could to put out the little fires. He was tired when he left at 7 o’ clock, the last person in the building like he had been all the other days. He drove straight to his parents’ home, wanting to get the unpleasantness over with so that he could go home and sleep, only to do it all again tomorrow.  
  
His parents were seated in the dining area when he let himself in, his mother standing up to welcome him, offering her cheek for a kiss. He let her lead him to the table, and accepted the offer of a plate of lasagna. He handed over the letter to his father before digging in, having skipped lunch in his misery.  
  
Odin unfolded the letter and Thor kept his gaze studiously on his plate as his father read. He therefore did not see the frown as the older man took in the fact they had lost their biggest client, or the blanching of his face when he saw the name of the company they had lost him to. He only looked up from his plate when his mother adressed a concerned query at her husband.  
  
“Did this come today?” Odin asked him.  
  
Thor nodded, swallowed his lasagna and added. “Mandy gave it to me before her lunchbreak.”  
  
Odin nodded and seemed lost in memory for awhile. Thor looked at him -lined from hard work and age and worry- and although he was angry at his father for leaving him to clean up a mess he never understood, still felt sorry he had to add to his burdens. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. Odin’s eyes came to rest upon him and he clarified “I’m sorry I let you down, that I let the firm down.”  
  
Odin shook his head, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “No, Thor, no, this isn’t your fault, it’s mine. I knew you weren’t ready, yet I let you handle everything alone. I haven’t done right by either of you, following my own plans without thinking about how they would come over to other people.”  
  
Thor could have cried in relief: he had still screwed up, but his father thought he’d given it his best try. He hadn’t just called him stupid and there was no disappointed look. He closed his eyes and sighed as he let part of the tension leave his shoulders. His mother’s hand settled on his forearm and she squeezed him slightly in reassurance. He shared a smile with her before turning back to his father. “What do you think we can do about it?” he asked, indicating the letter.  
  
Odin lifted his eyebrows. “Do about it?” he asked, “I don’t think there’s anything to do about it.”  
  
“But they are our largest account!” Thor protested. The fact that he himself had not come up with a solution was acceptable, even to be expected. But that his experienced father could not…that thought had never even occurred to Thor.  
  
“Oh yes they are,” Odin agreed, “And your brother had quite the job reeling them in and then living up to their standards. Before that it had been a running joke in the accounting business that the person who could hold their patronage for more than a year had yet to be born.” He gave a wry, self-loathing chuckle. “And I never even told Loki how proud I was of him that he could.”  
  
“But they’ve been with us for three years now. I admit the new accountmanager is still coming up to speed with the file, but we’re the ones who know Stark Industries best. They’ll have just as many problems with the new firm, if not more.”  
  
“It’s not that simple.” Frigga said with a sad shake of her head.  
  
“Jotunheim,” Odin elaborated, “was the erstwhile firm of Laufey. The fact that Loki went to Finland to find him and that he is now suddenly reviving his old business can’t be two disconnected facts. I think that Stark Industries merely followed the best accountmanager they ever had.”  
  
“You think Loki went to work for his father.” at the look of pain in Odin’s eye he added, “His biological father I mean.” It still felt weird to talk about his brother as having a completely different set of parents.  
  
“That is indeed what I think he did.” Odin concurred, “I can’t even find it in myself to feel that betrayed by it: one good betrayal probably deserves another. Let’s just hope that Stark is all he wants to take from us. Knowing Laufey, though, I doubt it: the man was always highly competitive and he has a very good reason to want Asgard brought low.”  
  
Thor’s thoughts were going a mile a minute: his brother was apparently alright there in Finland. Maybe he and Laufey had instantly connected and had decided to pool their resources. Odin had hurt them and now they were working as a family to hurt him back. Which meant that his brother probably didn’t even think of him as a brother anymore. That thought hurt…badly.  
It might also be possible that Loki had shown up on Laufey’s doorstep: confused and hurt. And then Laufey would have grabbed his opportunity at revenge, convincing Loki that he cared about him, that he wanted him. All the while using his brother to get the revenge he had waited so long for. That thought hurt too, although in a different way.  
  
“We have to talk to Loki!” Thor pressed, looking from Odin to Frigga and back, beseeching. “We have to clear this out before this situation gets out of hand.” He needed to know what was going through his brother’s mind. He needed to know if Loki still considered them family at all.  
  
“I’d say the situation is already true and well out of control,” his father sighed, “but you are right: I’ve left this for too long as it is. I’ll get some people to track him down tomorrow.”  
  
“Can’t you just call Jotunheim and ask to talk to him?” Thor asked, not seeing the need for such a go-around.  
  
“If we call Jotunheim, the one who will answer the phone will most likely be Laufey, since Loki would expect such a thing and he’s still ignoring us.” Thor winced as he recalled all the times he had been relegated to voicemail. “If we go around Laufey and find Loki that way, we’ll have a better chance at it.”  
  
Thor nodded in understanding: it made sense when his father explained it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t resent the time it would take. _We’re coming, Loki_ he thought, _everything will be cleared up soon and then you’ll be back home, where you belong_  
  
Who knew, maybe this wish could come true, if he believed in it strongly enough.


	13. A friend in need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Loki woke on the morning of the third day after his first chemotreatment to find himself in his own bed. His stomach was empty but steady and a hand pressed to his forehead revealed that his fever too was mostly under control. Combined with the fact that he had slept through the night, it was enough to make him feel human again. He supposed he should be glad to be back to some semblance of normalcy, but his spirits had gotten battered along with his body, meaning his outlook on his disease and convalesence had taken on a more realistic tinge. He was still adamant that he would get better, but he was no longer under the illusion that he would be able to do both that and run a company full-time.  
  
A look at the clock showed him the morning was already half gone. With a groan he got up, ready to search the kitchen for tea and toast. Afterwards he would call Laufey. His biological father had called him yesterday, to see if everything was alright and if he needed anything. Loki had by that time been over the height of his reaction to the medication and had managed to sound quite confident when he said everything was under control and he would be just fine, but he would call again the next day so they could make further plans.  
  
He had just put the kettle on and was rumaging around to get a cup, teabag and some sugar when the doorbell rang. Feeling his eyebrows raise in confusion, he went to the intercom and answered.  
  
“Hey, Loki! Dont’ leave your best friend standing in the cold. Let me in!”  
  
Of all the things he had expected, having Laufey come and check on him was perhaps at the top of his list. What was not at the top, or even close to the top, was for Tony Stark to have jumped on a plane and flown halfway across the world to land on his doorstep. His new doorstep. His new doorstep which he hadn’t even given Tony the address for yet. He pressed the button to open the door more out of instinct than conscious choice.  
  
After a few moments he could hear Tony bound upwards on the stairs, using the boundless energy he applied to all his projects. Loki opened his front door, clad only in a t-shirt and sweatpants. What he saw comming up the stairs could or could not be his friend. The gigantic giftbasket in his arms didn’t really allow Loki to see his face.  
  
Supposedly-Tony waltzed past him into the appartment until he found a table where he placed his huge burden with an equaly huge sigh of relief. His cheerful face and sparkling eyes fell as he turned round and got a first look at his friend.  
  
“That bad, huh.” Loki chuckled, closing the door and going to hug Tony. He knew from looking in the mirror that morning that he looked far more tired and unkempt than he had in a long while. He just praised himself lucky that his hair hadn’t started to fall out .. yet.  
  
“I’ve seen you looking better.” Tony replied tactfully and if anything hinted at a very bad situation, it was Tony Stark acting tactfully. Loki was squeezed tightly for a moment before Tony dragged him towards the heavily wrapped giftbasket. “Now open your present!” As Loki began unwrapping the colored paper, Tony kept talking. “I asked Jarvis to compile a list with recommended foods and stuff for people who have leukemia and just went from there. I took Pepper along to shop as well, so everything is vouched for.”  
  
Loki finally got the paper of and could only blink at the masses of stuff inside the package. “How did you get food past customs?” he asked to which Tony gave him the ‘please-I’m-Tony-Stark-I-can-do-anything’ look. Loki huffed out a laugh. “Only you, Tony.” He said, smiling, and then “Is that a steamer?”  
  
“Yes, it is. Jarvis says that steaming keeps most of the nutrients inside whatever it is you’re cooking. Of course I took it apart and made it better before I repackaged it. And there’s fruit and veggies and ginger ale and yoghurt and whole-grain cereals and ..”  
  
“Ginger ale?” Loki asked, “there’s a diet that calls for ginger ale? I thought it was just one of those home-remedies that only worked because you believed they did.” he picked one of the bottles up, examining the contents.  
  
“Isn’t it cool?” Tony exclaimed, “It has plenty of usefull stuff in it and you can use it when you’re not feeling up to eating or drinking anything heavy of greasy.”  
  
Loki watched as his friend started to grab stuff and haul it off to the kitchen, stocking up the fridge. Playing homemaker was not really Tony’s style, yet here he was, puttering around in the kitchen, reheating the kettle, making sure all the items fit into the fridge. Loki couldn’t help the smile that was tugging at his lips: whether Tony would admit it or not, he was the greatest friend imaginable.  
  
“Did Pepper give you permission to come over?” he asked, taking out a second mug and the rosehip tea he knew Tony favored.  
  
“Oh, Pepper came over too,” Tony said, making Loki’s mind boggle even more. “She’s currently inspecting the headquarters of Stark Finland, since that’s the official reason for comming over. Well, one part of the official reason. The other part is the switching of accountancy firm, which has to be prepared for. I’ve already typed up my letter to send to Asgard, all we need is a new firm to transfer to and then we’re all set. It’s just a bonus, really, that we have to be around you to ensure everything goes smoothly.” The last was said with a wink.  
  
“You and Pepper came to Finland.” Loki said, trying his best not to burst from the sheer amount of joy that throbbed hotly in his chest.  
  
“You didn’t think we would leave you alone through this, now did you?” Tony asked, putting an offended air into his voice as he dramaticaly pressed a hand to his heart. “Shame on you!” he gestured with a spoon in Loki’s direction as he started pouring the hot water. “Now sit down and tell me what happened since we got off the phone.”  
  
Loki grimaced as he dunked his teabag into the water several times before placing it on the saucer he had put out for it. “There’s not much to tell really.” He said, stirring the hot liquid in front of him, “I got home fine, got into bed and woke up a few hours later, sick as a dog. I’ve been hanging out with the toilet until yesterday afternoon.”  
  
Tony wrinkled his nose at the idea. “Ugh, and I thought hangovers were bad. It makes it easier to understand how you came to be so pale in such a short time though.” He took a sip of his own tea before placing a packet of crackers in front of Loki. “If you’re feeling up to trying your stomach with some food: this is the lightest thing in the appartment.”  
  
“Might as well,” Loki said, “I can’t afford to loose any more weight.” He tore the plastic wrapper from around the crackers, taking a tentative bite, making sure to chew for a long time before swallowing. The food went down and Loki waited a moment to see if his stomach would tell him eating is still not a good idea. Surprisingly, the food stayed down and he managed to eat both crackers and drink his tea in peace. It felt like an accomplishment after two days of not even being able to think of food.  
  
“So,” Tony said, and from the glimmer in his eyes, Loki already knew what he was going to ask. “How are things with your new dad then?”  
  
Loki sighed, playing with the mug in front of him. It was empty now and he was still thirsty, although that shouldn’t come as a surprise with how sick he had been. He was probably close to being dehydrated. Tony caught his look and switched on the kettle again before motioning him to get back to the question. “He lives outside the town,” Loki started, “I went to see him a few days before chemo started.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think he’s been out much since he came to live here. He really loved my mother though: he still had her picture.”  
  
Tony hummed, “So, who do you resemble most?”  
  
“My dad,” Loki said with a small smile, “but I seem to have inherited my mother’s eyes.” He cocked his head, looking at Tony. “It’s weird, but sometimes it used to bother me that I was so clearly the odd one out with my dark hair and green eyes while all the rest was blond with blue eyes. I mean, I looked more like you then I looked like them.”  
  
“Remeber that time we went out to that café on 2nd and I tried to pass you of as my brother to the waitress?” Tony asked and they both had to laugh at the botched attempt. “If I wasn’t such a public figure so that everyone knows I am an only child, we would have totally pulled it of.” He refilled their mugs. “Now tell me more about Laufey.”  
  
“He was surprised at seeing me: he had no idea he had a child, or that my mother had passed away. It’s weird for both of us though: I don’t feel comfortable calling him father and he doesn’t know what to do with a son, and an adult one at that. We’re both willing to try though. And the fact that we’ve both been betrayed by Odin is a good common ground until we feel like we have family ties.”  
  
“Betrayal is a real strong word, Loki.” Tony said with a sigh, staring sadly into his tea.  
  
“Then what would you call giving everything I’ve worked so hard for to Thor.” Loki snapped, unable to moderate the sudden anger that thinking about that board-meeting brought up every time his mind wandered that way. “Of raising me as a son when he knew full well he would never give me the same chances as my so-called brother.”  
  
Tony didn’t back down in the face of his friend’s tirade. He didn’t dispute Loki his opinion, but that didn’t mean he had to agree with it. “But you didn’t talk to him.” He argued his point, “Odin Asgard didn’t make it this far in life without having a plan for everything. Maybe you just don’t know the whole of it yet.”  
  
“I’m not a plan, Tony.” Loki sighed, “I’m his son. Or so I thought until he made it clear that I wasn’t.”  
  
“I’m not saying it was a good plan.” Tony said, leaning forward and placing a hand on Loki’s bare forearm, “I’m just saying: maybe you should hear him out before you decide to hate him for the rest of your life. I’m still on your side though: as a friend and as a client. You’re one of the few people in my life that hasn’t dropped me or sold me out when things got a little rough and I won’t forget it.”  
  
Loki frowned, thinking his friend’s words over. He had to admit that Tony made sense: Odin almost always had a plan up his sleeve, he would have had one for this situation as well. That Loki didn’t know what it was, or couldn’t see the use in it yet didn’t make it untrue. Still, he was too tired at the moment to give Odin the benefit of the doubt. He looked at Tony, seeing the momentary glimp of sadness that crossed his face: he had never had the chance to resolve the issues between himself and his own father before the latter had died in a car accident.  
  
Loki reached out a hand and placed it on Tony’s arm, squeezing it comfortingly. With a tiny smile, he said “Thank you, Tony. For everything. And especially for giving me your opinion even when it’s not what I want to hear.” Tony grinned back and Loki squeezed again before letting go and pulling back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment: I’m badly in need of a shower. We’ll call my father afterwards. I’m sure he will want to meet you and Pepper, so he can make sure I don’t fall in with the wrong people.” He teased gently, moving out of the way before Tony’s swat could make contact with his head.  
  
He took his shower while he heard Tony shouting from the livingroom all the things he could improve in Loki’s temporary abode. Some of the ideas his friend called out made him snort or even unable to contain a true laugh. He couldn’t get through this alone, he knew that now, but maybe...maybe he wasn’t as alone in it all as he had originally thought.


	14. Phil Coulson, private investigator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Phil Coulson had been doing jobs as a detective for Asgard Enterprises for the last 20-odd years. Mostly they involved corporate espionage and he would trail the suspect, gathering evidence that the firm’s own lawyers could use in trails. In Phil’s experience, it wasn’t very different from tailing persons accused of infidelity, only that the stakes were higher and the pay was better. Since Asgard was the biggest player on it’s market, it wasn’t really a big surprise that they were also the biggest target for people who wanted to get clandestine info on their competition.  
  
A rigorous selection of new employees was the company’s first defence against such leaks. The people they hired had passed not only tests of competence but also a questionnaire that allowed them to select employees that would be loyal to the firm and it’s code of confidentiality. The few who did try to make money on the side by selling secrets ended up on Phil’s desk.  
  
It was a good deal, as far as he was concerned: he helped to make the world a better place and he was generously rewarded for his services. Not to mention that having your name tied to Asgard in such a way had brought in a lot of other high-classed employers. And since Phil was exceedingly good at his job, he managed to keep those employers coming back.  
  
In all those 20 years of association though, he had never been to the Asgard’s private residence. His dealings had been exclusively with Odin himself, though he had met his youngest son in passing in the line of his assignments. Phil therefore thought the case that had just led him to park his car (an sleek black Acura that he leased to remain a low profile during stake-outs) on the driveway must be either very sensitive or of a personal nature rather than a professional one. Taking the last bite from his powdered donut, he whipped his hand, gathered his briefcase and crossed to the front door.  
  
Odin opened the door himself and – after a firm handshake and the exchange of the usual pleasantries – led Phil through a hall and into the stylishly decorated livingroom. Following the older man, he could practically feel the tension radiating off of him. It lifted for a moment when Odin introduced him to his wife Frigga who was every bit as beautiful and kind as Phil had thought she would be, probably wrapped around a core of steel to be able to keep up with a man like Odin. She offered him coffee, which he gratefully accepted and the all sat down in gorgeous leather sofas before Odin was ready to get to the business-part of the meeting.  
  
Phil gazed at Odin with his usual impeccably polite expression that hid the fact that Phil was constantly thinking up possible scenarios, solutions and profiles. The older man fiddled with his cup, obviously unsure of how to begin and Phil narrowed his guess down to this being a personal affair. Nothing in business had ever made his employer so nervous before and he had seen Odin in a number of unpleasant situations over the years.  
  
“Do you remember my youngest son, Loki?” Odin finally asked.  
  
Phil nodded. “I met him 2 years ago, when I talked to him to get a better profile on an employee you suspected of espionage.” The young man he remembered had no physical resemblance to his father, but they had been very alike in other ways. At Odin’s nod he added: “A very competent young man, he’ll do your company proud if you should ever choose to retire.” Odin’s smile at the praise was definitely forced and Frigga looked away while her fingers tightened on the ear of her cup.  
  
 _Interesting_  
  
Odin cleared his throat before resuming: “I have announced my retirement to the board about a month ago. The clients have been informed, but we decided not to go public with it until I pass the company on at the end of the year. My eldest son Thor will be my successor.”  
  
Phil mentally went over the few things he knew about Thor Asgard as he had never met him personally. Which Phil had always found strange, since he had met and seen Loki around a couple of times and Thor, being the eldest, should have been around for longer than that. In conversations with other employees, he had learned that the older brother wasn’t around that much, preferring parties to working. As far as Phil had noticed, none of the employees had seen Thor as their next boss. Still, it wasn’t his position to judge.  
Frigga took over the story, eyes filled with a plea for understanding. Their was guilt in there over something, Phil thought.  
  
“We know it wasn’t the choice that anyone was expecting. Tor never cared much for the firm, while Loki was as passionate about it as my husband himself. We thought to push Thor into growing up by taking responsibility things and that he would grow to love the company too, if he would just spend some more time in it.”  
  
Analytical mind whirring, he listened both to the things she said and to the things she didn’t. He read far more into it than she was telling him outright. Although Frigga said ‘we’, Phil had never known her to involve herself in the business of the company: that was Odin’s job. It was therefore far more likely that the decision had been Odin’s and that Frigga used the term to show her support to her husband.  
The next thing he noticed was the use of the past tense when referring to Loki’s involvement with the company. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have struck Phil as odd that Loki felt passed over and that his dedication to his work had received a solid blow.  
  
“We thought we would let Thor be CEO so he could take the sole responsibility for so many people. Loki would be there to keep an eye on things until Thor learned to pull his weight and then they could both run the company together, with Loki acting as co-CEO.” Odin expounded on the idea, “Only, I did not explain this to either of our boys and now Loki has left us and Thor is floundering on his own.”  
  
Ah, the lack of communication of a businessman who usually had others to explain his ideas for him. But even if Odin had at least sat his youngest son down for a talk beforehand, it would still be asking a lot of him to hold himself on the background for what could be years, while trying to protect the company he loved from any mistakes his brother may have made in his ignorance.  
  
“Being passed over as CEO isn’t the only problem,“ Frigga confessed. “Somehow Loki found out that he isn’t our biological son. We adopted him at a very young age, mere weeks after he was born, but he is in fact the son of Odin’s former business-rival, Laufey Nal. A week after Odin announced his decision, Loki resigned and moved to Finland. We believe that he went to find his biological father and that Laufey and he have started their own company.”  
  
“The company is, however, not what we have brought you here to discuss.” She clarified, “We want you to find for us. He left no forwarding address and has ignored all our calls to his cellphone. We are worried about him and…” here she broke off, having to swallow twice before she could continue. Odin put his arm around her shoulders in support. “And we want him to know that we’re sorry for not telling him the truth, but that we have always loved him as our own and that we will continue to do so, whatever he may choose to do with the rest of his life.”  
  
Phil finished the rest of his coffee while mulling over the trainwreck that had unfolded before him. He had of course done missing persons cases before and he wasn’t phased by the prospect of having to go to Finland to further his investigation. But the one thing that he always considered before taking a case like this was if it was also in the best interest of the missing person to be found. If he thought that the person had ran away from abuse (be it physical or mental) he would refuse the job.  
Here, he thought it would be beneficial for Loki to see that his adoptive parents really loved him. That they cared for him and missed him.  
  
“I’ll take the case.” He said, putting the cup back down to shake hands with Odin and Frigga to seal the deal.  
  
The following weeks saw Phil moving around a lot, trying to get as complete an image of Loki Asgard (or maybe it was Loki Nal by now) as he could. He talked to former co-workers (including his brother Thor and Odin’s secretary Mandy), people at the appartmentcomplex where he used to live and after a few of them mentioned Loki being sick the last time they had seen him) even his GP, Doctor Bennet. The last one claimed doctor-patient confidentiality and would tell him nothing, save to confirm that Loki had been to see him several times for a persistent cold, prompting Bennet to write him a week of sick-leave. It was probably nothing, but Phil’s instincts were nagging at him and he asked a befriended doctor to contact the hospitals in the region of Helsinki and Porvoo for the mention of his quarry.  
  
He had also hoped to be able to speak to Tony Stark and his assistant Pepper Potts since both were reported to be very close friends , but both were unavailable seeing as how they were currently in Europe ‘on official business’.  
  
Drawing on previous experience, Phil determined that Loki would probably have moved to within a 50 kilometre radius of his biological father and most likely even to a place within the same city. A query into newly acquisitioned property showed Loki hadn’t bought anything in the area. A different question to all the hotels showed no record of him there either. That left just 2 possibilities: either he had moved in with his biological father, which was unlikely since Phil had found no record of them having been in touch before Loki left the USA. Or he had rented a place, which was far less traceable.  
  
Having gotten as far as he possibly could with the investigation as long as he remained based in New York, Phil packed his suitcases to continue in Finland. He was about to check into customs when his phone beeped and he received two new messages. The first one was from his contact at the bank, stating that there had been a number of purchases with Loki’s card in the city of Porvoo. The second was from his doctor friend and stated that a patient by the name of Loki Asgard had treated just yesterday at the Helsinki General Hospital Cancer Ward.  
  
This last bit of information had Phil cursing to himself. If Loki had cancer, chances were high that that had been how he had found out he was adopted. He was no medical expert, but even he knew that for some cancers, recovery was aided by healthy stemcells, either the patients own or those of a close family member. If Loki’s had already been too damaged to extract, doctors would have concentrated on his family, revealing that the people he had referred to as such, were not his actual family at all. All the pieces in the story now fell into place.  
  
Phil hesitated a moment between postponing his flight and going to tell the family in person, and taking the flight to get to the bottom of things before he did anything else. In the end he decided to go through with it, to personally verify everything before he put yet another worry on the family’s shoulders. He messaged Odin about his departure to Finland and got on the plane that would bring him closer to the answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just to be clear: the session Phil finds out about is actually the second chemo run. We will return to Finland in the next chapter, since they're running somewhat behind due to my aweful planning skills.


	15. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Tony Stark would be the first person to admit that he didn't have many friends. What he did have was any number of sycophants, people that wanted to use him for personal or financial gain, people that sent him christmascards and people who lived to make his life a living hell (one Justin Hammer came to mind).  
  
The actual friends could be counted on the fingers of one hand. There was Pepper (and he still didn't know how he had survived in the years before he met her), Rhodey, Happy, JARVIS (yes, AI's can be friends) and since three years ago, Loki.  
  
None of these friendships had been easy in the beginning, but Tony had since learned that there were 2 kinds of people. There was the kind that composed 99,99 percent of the human population and those were the people that were driven crazy by prolongued interaction with him. And then there was that 100th of a percent that adapted to him, that mutated into beautiful Tony-resistant friends who knew what was just Tony being Tony and when they should put their foot down and call him on his bullshit.  
  
Tony would gladly go to hell and back for every single one of them. Compared to that a trip to Finland was nothing. The true hell had started when he had had his first good look at Loki.  
  
Workstress, the different revelations in both his personal and professional life and (most of all) the leukaemia and subsequent treatment hadn't done his friend any favours. Loki looked pale and washed out, had deep bruises under his eyes and had visibly lost weight. His normally fluid movements now held a certain stiffness to them, making his movements somewhat abrupt looking. Tony was very glad he had already put his present down on the table: he was sure he would have dropped it otherwise. He had tried to cover up his shock, but saw in Loki's eyes that he hadn't been entirely successful. Neither had made a big deal out of it, but to Tony it underscored the possibility that he could loose one of his precious few friends.  
  
Tony didn't like that idea. He tried to banish it from his mind, but it came out every chance it had. Like when he spent the night on Loki's couch and lay awake until dawn, thinking far too much for his own good. Or when he saw his friend reach for something, sweater riding up to show off a painfully thin wrist. Loki had always been lean, but now it seemed like he was growing slimmer every day to the point where his clothes hung limply around his frame. The smallest action seemed to tire him out as his body used what little reserves it had left to fight against the cancer. Tony found himself spending a lot of time making sure his friend had everything he could possibly need within reaching distance so that Loki didn't have to spend energy on something stupid as getting up and walking around his apartment. He knew he was treating his friend like an invalid and that it must be tiring to him, but Loki gave no indication that he minded appeasing Tony's worry like this.  
  
Their days fell into some sort of pattern early on. On the days that Tony wasn't needed at work, he would either go over from their hotel or wake up on Loki's couch. He would then make breakfast for the both of them. The rest of the morning would be spent by lying on the couch and trying to work (Loki) or alternately working on his tablet and making sure Loki had everything he needed (Tony). The days when Loki had not had much sleep at night because he was nauseous or when he was running a fever, he dozed more than he worked, but that was alright by Tony. Then there was lunch and in the afternoon, if Loki felt up to it, Tony and he went out to the small café on the corner of the street. Some days Pepper joined them there and sometimes Laufey came into town to sit with them.  
  
Both Pepper and Tony had met Loki's biological father the third day of their stay. He was a pretty decent guy from what Tony had seen, if a bit out of contact with the rest of society from having kept himself apart for so long. He still had his business-savy though and they had spent an afternoon signing contracts and talking shop. Afterwards both Americans agreed that given the chance, Laufey could make a very good father to their friend.  
  
Watching them together had been like watching a somewhat shy affair starting: conversations were stilted and there was a lot of just watching the other, seeing what made them tick and what was important to them. For Laufey there was the added stress of investing himself emotionally when he could well just be setting himself up for more heartache if Loki didn't make it through the cancer. It was a difficult situation to find oneself in and Tony couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the older man.  
  
Loki made an effort in the evenings to learn Finnish (again if he could keep himself awake for it). Tony was both delighted and horrified by this development although he tried valiantly not to show it. On one hand it showed that Loki was making an effort to get closer to his father by learning his native tongue. He clearly meant to use it in the future and Tony took it as a sign he was focused on beating his cancer so he could still be alive to speak it. On the other hand it also showed that he was thinking of making his stay in Finland a permanent one and that Tony would probably still loose his friend.  
  
It could be argued that they could Skype and call and so would still be able to enjoy each other’s company. But Tony was used to their dinner-‘dates’ and it just wouldn’t be the same if he had to explain everything about his newest inventions on the phone.  
  
To top of this series of depression-inducing thoughts, Pepper brought the news of an emergency at headquarters that required both their attention and presences. Tony felt like screaming at the world, but it had never heeded him on any of his previous tries and it didn’t seem to be inclined to start now. He broke the news of their departure to Loki when they were in the bar. Laufey was present as well, promising to keep an eye on everything and contacting social services so that they could send someone to help out those first days after the chemo. Tony couldn’t see past Loki’s expressionless mask to make out what he thought about being abondoned like that, though his friend insisted it was fine and Tony had done a lot for him already.  
  
Tony put away his insecurities until that evening when it was just the two of them. Loki was half-dozing on the couch and Tony had just finished putting away the dishes before he came to sit in the armchair and faced the other man.  
  
“You know I wouldn’t leave you if it wasn’t something very important, don’t you?”  
  
Loki looked up at him, seemingly surprised by the question. “Of course,” he answered. “Actually, I think it’s a small miracle that you were able to stay for three weeks before something like that popped up. Normally when you go abroad for Stark Industries it’s only for a week or so.”  
  
“Good,” Tony said, swirling his drink around, “Because I thought you might be mad at me when you brushed it off this afternoon.” For a while there was no answer, prompting Tony to look away from his drink and focus back on Loki. His friend was fiddling with the pages of his textbook. “Loki?” he asked, gently, not wanting to push the other.  
  
“I’m not angry at you, Tony, I promise. It’s just that...I’m scared.” Loki confessed, voice soft and ashamed. “I’ve been loosing weight and strength and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep going. Chemo last time was pretty bad and I started it in a way better condition than I am in now. I don’t want to give up, but I’m starting to understand that no matter how much I want to win this fight, it’s not all up to me.”  
  
Tony’s heart felt like it skipped a few beats. The moment it was steady again, he was out of his seat and kneeling before Loki, pulling him into his arms and a hug that was probably a little too smothering, but he didn’t care about that. Not when his friend so obviously needed reassurance. “Hey, hey, don’t talk like that.” He whispered to the black-haired head that rested on his shoulder. “I realize that this must be scary. Hell, it’s scaring me too and I’m not even the one that’s sick. But attitude does help, Loki, even if only a little and you’ll need everything you can get to help you get through this. So please, don’t give up yet!”  
  
“I’m not giving up,” Loki said, a little bit of fight entering his voice again and Tony sighed in relief. Het let Loki tug himself out of his embrace so they could look eachother in the eye. “I never meant to give up. It’s just that sometimes it becomes a little larger than life in my head and I need someone to put it back in perspective.”  
  
“I can do that,” Tony said, feeling a grin start to tug on his mouth. “Pepper says I’m a master at bending perspectives to my hand.”  
  
Loki let out a soft laugh, probably imagining the situation that had prompted the comment from Pepper and Tony settled at his side. Together they watched television until it was time for Tony to go back to his hotel.  
  
The next two days before their flight, Tony and Pepper stayed with Loki as much as they could. Food was brought in and someone from social services came by to discuss what kind of help he would need after his chemo. Tony found himself becoming increasingly restless as the hours they still had together counted down. The irrational fear that this would be the last time he and Loki would talk clawed at his insides and his fingers itched for a glass of scotch to drown it out. Fortunately, both Pepper and Loki knew him well enough to see his agitation and distracted him with work.  
  
They left in the afternoon, Laufey giving them all a ride to the airport in his old but sturdy car. They were quiet during the hour it took to get them there, Tony feeling comforted by Loki’s warm presence against his side. When the time came for them to check in, Tony supressed another brief panic-attack and merely hugged his friend.  
  
“You’ll do great.” He muttered as he stepped back after a few minutes. He quickly ruffled a hand through Loki’s black hair. It was not as thick as it used to be, but it showed no immediate signs of falling out in clumps and Tony found himself ridiculously grateful for that fact. “I’ll call you as often as I can, okay?”  
  
“I’m going to hold you to that.” Loki answered with a small laugh, “You’ll get tired of me soon enough.”  
  
“Never.” Tony swore, pulling Loki into another hug. And then there was an announcement of last call for their plane and Pepper was embracing Loki while Laufey shook Tony’s hand before they moved to their gate and boarded. They were in the air not even half an hour later and although the soil of Finland fell away beneath them, Tony felt as if he had left a part of himself there with Loki, to look after him in his absence.


	16. Chemo round 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

“Hello?” Laufey answered his phone, slightly out of breath from having had to cross the entire house to get to it. It was already dark outside and he had been packing some stuff up to go and visit his son tomorrow to see if he needed anything after his chemo session today.

“Good day, sir, am I speaking to Laufey Nal?” At Laufey’s affirmative, the young woman on the other end went on. “I’m calling from the Helsinki hospital. We have with us a certain Loki Asgard.”

“Is he alright?” Laufey interrupted her, thoughts of his too-frail son crowding his mind.

“As well as can be expected. He had chemo today and it took a lot out of him. We do not want to let him go home by public transport and he has no other people we can contact...”

“I’ll come and pick him up, I know where it is.” Laufey said, already looking for his car keys. He wondered briefly if Loki had caught the bus home the first time he had gone to get treated. The thought of Loki, feverish and nauseous on a bus full of strangers who couldn’t care less sat wrong with him. He put the phone back down and grabbed a blanket and some water before leaving for the hospital.

Loki was seated in the waiting area when he entered the lobby. The first time he had had chemo, it had been several days before Laufey had seen him again and the side effects from the drugs had already largely worn off by then. Now their presence was in full effect and Loki appeared much smaller than usual, hunched in on himself and shivering, hands tucked into the pockets of his warm coat. A nurse sat next to him, talking softly. She looked up as Laufey came to stand in front of him.

“Mister Nal?” she asked, holding out her hand for him to shake, “I’m Kaisa, we talked on the phone.”

“Yes, thank you for calling.” He looked at Loki, finding weary green eyes staring back at him and he couldn’t quite help the gentle smile that tugged at his lips. “Let’s get you home, Loki.”

Kaisa helped him stand, smiling again as Laufey moved to take the weight from her. Loki was slightly unsteady, but still able to stand under his own power as long as he had someone to lean against. The nurse fussed briefly with her patients scarf, reminded him to drink lots and not overdo anything and then let them go on their way.

Laufey shortened his steps, grateful that the hospital staff had cleared their parking lot of snow so that they could get to their vehicle safely. Loki sat down heavily in the passenger seat, head leaned back and eyes closed. Laufey tucked the blanket around him and sat the water bottle in the cupholder within easy reach.

Loki opened his eyes as Laufey got in and put on his seatbelt. His voice sounded rough from disuse and he seemed to be having trouble with focusing his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bother you, but they wouldn’t let me leave on my own.”

“I’m glad they called.” Laufey said, pulling out of the parkingspace, “You’re in no condition to be on a bus by yourself.” He sighed, letting the car idle and looked at his son. “I know this isn’t easy for you: you’re used to doing things yourself and I’m still mostly a stranger. It’s weird for me too, I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that I’m a father. But I want you to know that I’m here for you, whatever you need. Even if it is just to talk about something, even if it is the middle of the night.” He looked into those sad green eyes, feeling like he wasn’t getting across what he really wanted to say: I may not know that much about you, but I love you and you mean the world to me. After Odin took away his life’s work and he had had to close his business, nothing had mattered anymore. He had retired, had locked himself away from the rest of the world and it had taken this sick yet determined young man to show up on his doorstep, claiming him as his father to bring him back to the world. “I’m probably doing this all wrong.” He muttered when no reply was forthcoming.

This surprised a laugh out of Loki and there was a slight smile around his lips as he answered: “You’re doing much better than Odin, if it’s any consolation.”

“Yeesh, you have low standards for me.” Laufey said before he thought it through and the next moment they were both chuckling. Then Loki closed his eyes again with a sigh and Laufey drove them both home in a silence that wasn’t awkward at all.

Loki dozed with his head against the sidewindow, feeling the cold of it soothe his pounding head. His thoughts turned to Odin, as if saying his name had summoned him into the forefront of his mind somehow. Maybe he hadn’t been totally fair just now, saying that Laufey was better at this than Odin was. His foster-father had never come get him when he was ill, but that had been normal flus, not something as big as this was. Maybe Odin would have put his son first if he had known Loki was this ill. Maybe he would have even taken leave from Asgard to drive him to appointments, or sit home with Frigga and hold him after the chemo made him feel like he wanted to die.  
And suddenly, he missed his family, his home with a force that nearly knocked him of his seat. Frigga’s doting manner, Thor’s (sometimes misplaced) affectionate hugs and his father, stern but still supporting through everything. Why had he just left them? Why hadn’t he tried to at least talk to them? Tony had been right to say that Odin always had plans, Loki should have been smarter and figured it out before doing something so rash.

He would call them, he decided, after the effects from the chemo. Frigga at the very least and probably Thor too and maybe he could even find the courage to call Odin. He had struggled with calling Frigga for 2 weeks now, taking out his phone and flipping it open before a wave of hurt feelings or shame rose in him and made him put it back into his pocket.

He watched Laufey drive from beneath his eyelashes for a moment. His biological father had seemed eager to come and get him from the hospital, humming beneath his breath as he took the exit to Porvoo on the freeway. Loki liked him: he was kind and honest and seemed to genuinely love his newly-discovered son. Would calling his foster-family be betraying his real father? Would Laufey think that he wasn’t enough for Loki, that he had missed his chance and that Loki would leave him on his own again to go back to his house and stay there for the rest of his life?

He sighed: everything was too complicated and there were too many drugs running through his system, making him woozy and nauseous. He would call after he no longer felt like puking up his stomach lining.

Laufey had heard his small noise and briefly squeezed his thigh, saying “Was their anything you wanted to pick up from home?”

Confused, he lifted his head and looked at his father. “Pick up?”

“I’m not letting you stay alone like this.” Laufey snorted, “My house is big enough and I have a spare bedroom that I made up in case..” he trailed of here but the reasoning was clear: in case Loki had wanted to move in.

“I’ll need some clothes and the food Tony bought me and my medication.” He said, looking back at the road as the car turned into the city proper, making it’s way to the riverside and Loki’s appartment. Laufey parked in front of the house, then came around to Loki’s side and assisted him in getting his tired limbs out of the car and into his flat, sitting him down on the couch as the older man filled a box with necessities. Then they were off again, Loki leaning on one shoulder, box under the other arm, carefully down the stairs and back into the car. Loki missed the rest of the ride, only waking again when Laufey opened the door to his own house and steered him into the guestroom. Too tired to be ashamed, he let the other dress him in his pajamas and put him into bed where he was out like a light in seconds.

Of course the sleep didn’t last, just like it hadn’t after the first session. Sometime in the middle of the night; he woke up to rush to the bathroom and fall on his knees in front of the toilet, bile rising in his throat and then he was throwing up, body shaking with the force of it. It lasted what felt like a very long time before the first wave ended and he sagged down, gasping for breath. His mind spiraled and he remembered he wanted to buy a better rug to sit on while doing this but he never quite did.

Noise then, coming closer as another wave of nausea had him sitting up over the toilet bowl again. Laufey coming in, wrapping a blanket around him and holding him up, stroking his hair out of the way. They sat like that for hours and it was still bad and not something he would wish on anyone, but he was comforted by not being alone and able to finally doze of in Laufey’s arms around noon. The last thing he heared before soothing blackness took him away was the whispered “It’s fine now, you’re going to be alright, I’ve got you.”


	17. Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

It took Loki another two days to get through the worst of it, though the medication he had gotten against nausea made the whole thing more bearable than it had been the first time. He still wasn’t able to eat anything without it coming back up, but the dry heaves that had plagued him so last month mercifully stayed away.  
  
The first day that he could move about again, he wanted fresh air so badly that he put on warm clothes and went to sit on Laufey’s front porch. His father had made several trips back and forth to his apartment and now most of his things were here, tucked away in the guestroom that he occupied. It was obvious that Laufey would like it best if Loki decided to make it his permanent room, but he didn’t know if he was ready for that step just yet.  
  
His intention to call his mother had been necessarily postponed by the aftereffects of the chemo, but now he was relatively well and had no real reason not to call. He had his phone with him and it felt heavy in the pocket of his coat. He tried to organize his thoughts, to decide whether he would call or just text her. What would he tell her? ‘I know I’m not your son.’, ‘How is Thor taking his new position?’ ‘And by the way, I’m struggling against cancer and may not be alive by the end of the year.’ All those statements sounded accusing to his ears and not at all what he wanted to say.  
  
Maybe he should just keep it simple and text her he was well, but wouldn’t be coming home any time soon. It would be a first step and he could build from there. Mother would surely tell Thor and Odin taking away the need for Loki to do it himself. Maybe that made him a coward, but at the moment, he didn’t really have the energy to care.  
  
Loki took his cellphone out and flipped it open, tapping until he had a basic message. _Dear mother. Am doing well, but won’t be coming back yet. I love you, Loki_ He hit ‘send’ and watched as the message-envelope folded and went on its merry way.  
  
The crunch of gravel and an American voice brought him back from anxiously awaiting a reply.  
  
“Loki Asgard?” a suit-dressed, middle-aged man with a mysterious smile stood on Laufey’s driveway. The black of his clothes contrasted harshly with the fine layer of snow that still covered the ground.  
  
Technically, he could have debated against the last name the visitor used, but he hadn’t changed it legally yet and so he nodded.  
  
“I went by your apartment, but no-one was there, so I thought I’d try my luck here. Your father’s place, is it?” The same smile stayed on his face and he looked around as if to take in the estate.  
  
Loki was just about to ask for the name of his conversation partner, when something clicked and he found that he knew him already. It had been a year since they had seen each other and he was out of context here, but Loki was certain he was looking at Phil Coulson, the detective on Asgard’s payroll. “Mr. Coulson, you’re a long way from New York.” He greeted. He had no doubt that Phil had recognized him without needing to ask, unless the fact that he was paler and slimmer had thrown the man for a loop.  
  
“So are you.” Coulson said. “I won’t beat around the bush, Mr Asgard. Your adoptive father sent me to come and find you.”  
  
Loki couldn’t help the ice that suddenly seemed to flow in his veins. He didn’t want this, didn’t want to be forced back before he was ready. “And now you have.” He just said, forcing himself to calm down and hear the detective out.  
  
“And now I have,” the older man agreed. “But not in the condition your parents thought you would be. They are extremely worried about you.”  
  
This last shot a spike of guilt through Loki’s heart, thinking about his quiet and dignified mother wringing her hands or maybe even crying. He pushed the mental image away; it would do him no good to dwell on those things now. He chose instead not to say anything, putting the ball firmly back in the other’s camp.  
  
“I was actually asked to just find you and then report back, “ the detective went on, unflappable as always, “but I decided against that course of action when I find out you had received cancer treatment. I don’t claim to understand what exactly happened between you and your parents, Mr Asgard, but this is a very serious thing to keep them in the dark about.”  
  
Loki’s reply was forestalled by the opening of the front door and Laufey stepping out. It was clear that he had heard the entire conversation and now he came to stand protectively behind his son. “With all due respect, Mr Coulson, but Odin and Frigga are not his real parents. What Loki chooses to tell them or not is entirely up to him. And even if they were his parents, he’s very much an adult and legally capable of making up his own mind.” He handed Loki a mug of chamomile tea, freed a spot on the steps beside him and took his own seat, forming a front against who he seemed to be considering an intruder.  
  
Coulson just took everything in stride. Loki remembered that he had admired this trait very much when he had worked with the man back in New York. “Of course it is.” He said, “I only meant that it’s very easy to loose sight of certain things while being angry and upset. I’m not suggesting you go back to the States, or even that you immediately forgive and forget. All I’m asking is that you think about giving them a call and telling them what’s going on. They love you, they want to make things right again, but they can’t if you won’t let them.”  
  
Loki didn’t know what to say to that. He was no longer so angry at Odin, nor at Thor for just going with the flow, nor with his mother for keeping the secret of his heritage. They had taken him in, raised him and loved him. Gave him an education and the chance to make something of his life (even though Odin expected that that something would be with his own firm). He had a lot to be grateful for. He knew now that he had been irrational in just running away, but he had panicked at too much, too fast and rational had flown out of the door in that crucial stage.  
  
And now he had Finland and Laufey and Jotunheim and it didn’t feel right to cut all those newly formed ties. Laufey deserved better than having his new son run off now that he had what he wanted from him. Tony deserved better than taking a leap of faith and following Loki and then hearing the company would be discarded. Loki felt torn between this new life and his former one.  
  
His internal conflict must have shown in his face. Coulson took pity on him and fished something out of his inner pocket. It was a businesscard and he held it out for Loki to take. Apart from his name, there was also a cellphonenumber. “Think about what you want to do and then give me a call. I’m flying back to New York tomorrow evening.” The detective then held his hand out and shook Loki’s frail one. “Whatever you decide, I wish you all the best.” He then nodded politely at Laufey and turned around to walk back to the street and his rental car.  
  
Father and son watched him go until the car disappeared behind the hedge, sitting a few moments more in silence. Laufey sighed then, and Loki looked at him finding him gazing back with a sad smile. “I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to go back to New York.” The older man said, making Loki’s eyebrows climb in surprise. “You only know me here and not so well at that. All your friends, your (and here his voice turned a little bitter) family, is there.”  
  
“You’re here.” Loki protested, not feeling comforted by the wan smile Laufey gave him.  
  
“I don’t want to be the thing that holds you back from living your life.”  
  
“You’re part of my life.” Loki said, now surer of himself, “I know I’m selfish, but I don’t want to give up either family: real or adopted.” And then he stopped, realizing it was true: he still loved his New York family, despite what he had felt and done earlier. And he loved Laufey too.  
  
They were silent again, Laufey rubbing his hands together and Loki sipping his now barely lukewarm tea. Beyond the porch, snow was falling once more in tiny white flecks, erasing Couslon’s footprints flake by flake. His father’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You can’t travel in your condition, but...but perhaps you could ask your other family to come over. They could stay in your apartment for, you know, the duration of their visit.”  
  
“You would do that?” Loki asked, amazed and even humbled by what Laufey had proposed. “You would let Odin into your house, to visit me; even after all he has done to you?”  
  
Laufey nodded. It was clear that he wasn’t absolutely thrilled with it, but he would put aside his own troubles for his son. Despite the snowfall and the cold, Loki didn’t think he’d ever felt so warm before. He put down his mug and threw his arms around his father’s neck, startling a laugh out of him. Wracking his brain for the right words, he felt his voice wobble tearfully as he thanked the man that had done so much for him recently. “Kiitos. Kiitos paljon, isä.” ( _Thank you. Thank you so much, father.)_  
  
“Rakastan sinua.” _(I love you)_ Laufey returned, squeezing just a little tighter.  
  
“Love you too.” And in that moment, everything was fine in the world.  
  
They untangled after awhile and Laufey helped him back up. “Let’s get you back inside and warm. You can call Odin’s man from there.”  
  
As his father went back inside, Loki felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and took it out. There was one message from Frigga in his inbox and he clicked it open with a faint buzz of anxiety...and exhaled in relief at the loving words he found there. _Take all the time you need. We’ll always be here for you. All my love and kisses, Mother._


	18. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Frigga's mood had made a whole 180 degree turn from the moment she had received Loki's message. She had started the morning as she had every day since Loki had left: borderline depressed and with no hope for betterment. She had been trying to concentrate on a book when her phone beeped and she had grabbed it, expecting perhaps a message from Odin or Thor to say they would be home later. One look at the ID however had sent her book flying as her hands suddenly became clumsy when she fumbled to clap open the little piece of technology. The message was short and to the point, but it filled her with warmth and made some of the worry that had been gnawing at her insides abate.  
  
She had decided against calling Thor and Odin (who were both at Asgard) immediately. And then she had spent long moments wondering what she would reply. Something reassuring, something that didn't put further pressure on their relationship, something that assured him of their love for him. She carefully typed out her answer and sent it back before turning her mind to tonight’s dinner.  
  
Cooking had always been her way to work of her worries and stress. Many times her husband had protested at all the work she put into what were supposed to be simple family dinners, arguing that they could afford to hire a cook so she could have more time to herself. She had turned him down on the offer every single time. The last two months had seen exceedingly stranger and difficult dishes as she had tried to work through her feelings and fear for her youngest son. Most of those creations had gone largely unappreciated since none of them could work up the appetite for them. Today however, she hummed as she moved around the kitchen, making meat and gratinated potatoes and a masterpiece of a desert.  
  
It was nearly 7 pm when she heard the front door open and close and the house coming alive with the deep, carrying voices of her husband and eldest child. Her heart gave a little pang at missing the sound of Loki's slightly higher voice, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that Loki still loved them and that he'd hopefully come home soon.  
  
The snatches of conversation she was able to hear were about work. Odin still planned on retiring, but had pushed the date back a bit so that he could finish teaching Thor everything he had to know to run the company competently. It had been a relief for her eldest (although he hadn't said it in that many words) to be able to take a step back. He was mostly observing at the moment, getting his bearings again and resolved to do better this time (although she still didn't think this would have been the job he would have chosen for himself). The downward spiral Asgard had been in was now nearly turned back around and beside Stark Industries they had managed to keep all their other customers so far. Resources had been spread differently over the departments and the employees had breathed a collective sigh of relief at knowing they would still have a job come the New Year. They showed grudging respect for Thor now that he had admitted to not being ready for the position and for his new willingness to learn.  
  
Her son joined her in the kitchen now, kissing her cheek in greeting and lifting the lids of her pots to have a peek at what she had made, humming as he breathed in the scent. She laughed and waved her spoon at him in mock-threat. “You’ll have your dinner faster if you lay the table.” She reminded him and he gave her a small smile before taking the stacks of plates and a handful of utensils to the dining room.  
  
Warm arms slipped around her waist as her husband pressed against her back, kissing her other cheek. Frigga sighed contentedly and relaxed back against him. They hadn’t done this for years and it was the only thing even remotely good coming from their troubles: their family had become closer once more, trying to compensate for its missing member. After a last soft squeeze, Odin let go of her to pick up the glasses and the wine bottle. It was a good one, expensive and mostly used when they wanted to celebrate something. Odin’s eyebrows raised in question at her, but she gave a little shake of her head and just said: “Later.” It was a measure of the trust between them that he didn’t make any further enquiry, but left to join Thor in the dining room.  
  
A little later they sat at the table (where Thor had laid an extra place for Loki). Frigga had initially thought to wait with her announcement until they would start on desert, but found herself almost ready to burst with the knowledge of it and opened her mouth as soon as every one was served. “I received a message from Loki this morning.”  
  
Thor’s fork clattered down on his plate and Odin cursed slightly as he spilled some of his wine. Apart from that, there was silence.  
  
Her men broke it together, Thor with a “Why didn’t you call us?” and Odin with “What did it say?”  
  
“I didn’t call you, because there was nothing you could do about it.” Frigga told them, “The message wasn’t long: just that he’s doing alright and loves us, but won’t be coming back home yet.” The smile that had built on Thor’s face during the first part of the message now fell away again and he stabbed hard at his meat.  
  
Odin studied her carefully, analytic mind already going over the possibilities. “Was that the exact wording of it?”  
  
She shook her head, knowing the real wording was a little less hopeful then how she had put it. “He didn’t actually use the word home, just that he wouldn’t be coming back yet.” Her fingers twisted her napkin nervously.  
  
“And?” Odin insisted.  
  
“And he only specified that he loved me.” She said, and then continued defiantly over her husband’s sigh, “But that was probably only because the message was addressed to me. Surely he loves all of us, we’re his family.”  
  
“But you haven’t used him to do all your work for you or pushed him from the position he worked so hard for.” Thor said, “Of course he still loves you, Mother, how could he not?”  
  
“You forget that I lied to him every bit as much as your father has. If he can forgive me, then surely he can forgive both of you too.”  
  
Odin and Thor exchanged a glance and then her husband looked back at her, announcing “Coulson called not too long ago. He found Loki and wants to meet with us. He will be back in New York tomorrow, so I invited him to come over tomorrow after dinner.”  
  
Frigga felt her heart give a few pained beats. “Did he say anything more? Did he see him? How is he doing?”  
  
“He said nothing except that he found him.” Odin shook his head. “But I know Coulson and if he wants to meet with us personally, there’s something more going on. We’ll know tomorrow.”  
  
The rest of the diner (food now only lukewarm and not nearly as tasty as when she had made it) was a quiet affair with all of them busy with their own thoughts. Thor went home about an hour later, with Frigga and Odin retiring to their bed not long afterwards. They lay together, her back pressed against his chest, an arm around her waist and she could tell Odin wasn’t asleep either. It was a very long time before either of them could sleep.  
  
The next day saw Thor and Odin back at the Asgard residence at half past three in the afternoon. Neither had been able to concentrate with the anticipation running through their systems and in the end Mandy had told them to leave because they were making the whole floor tense. Frigga herself had not fared any better, flitting between a book she read for her book club (a recommendation from Loki from a few months back), thoughts about the meeting, preparations for the sending of their Christmas cards and a dozen other things. Dinner turned out to be glorified grilled-cheese sandwiches, but nobody complained about it.  
  
The ringing of the doorbell pulled them away from the dishes and Odin went to answer while Frigga hurriedly get out glasses and refreshments. Coulson looked calm as he accepted his own cup of coffee, taking out a paper file from his briefcase. Frigga grabbed Odin’s hand as she sat down too and then all eyes were on the detective, tension nearly thick enough to cut.  
  
“I have found Loki, as requested.” Phil Coulson said, taking a sip of his coffee before continuing. “He has rented a small apartment in the town of Porvoo, where his father has lived ever since he returned from the States.” He pulled out of few pictures from the file, spreading them out on the table. “The building stands at the edge of a river and your son rented the upper floor. Everything went through an estate agency, so it wasn’t that hard to find once I got there.”  
  
Frigga looked at the pictures: a fairly new building with others beside it, a small layer of snow covering the roof and the entrance path. The upper floor looked to be about the size of the apartment Loki had owned in New York, but it was hard to determine just by looking at a picture of it. She tried to envision her Loki living there, in that foreign city with people who didn’t speak English as a first language. He would be fine, she reminded herself, he was smart enough to make it everywhere.  
  
“Before I left, I had a tip from a friend of mine in the medical world. He said there had been a Loki Asgard admitted to the Helsinki hospital for day-treatment.”  
  
Frigga squeezed her husband’s hand, placing her other on Thor’s thigh when she saw him tense up beside her. The word hospital had her throat clamping shut and her heart began to beat faster. Odin squeezed back, though she could see he was frightened too, yet it was he who managed to ask: “Why was he there, did you find out?”  
  
Coulson looked at each of them and Frigga felt a shiver travel up her spine. Whatever news he would give, she knew she wouldn’t like it. “There is no easy way to break this to anyone.” The detective said, settling his gaze on her. “I’m sorry to have to inform you that your son has leukemia.”  
  
It was as if someone had poured ice-cold water over her. Her hand froze in Odin’s, breath hitching. She had a thousand questions, but none made it past her numb mouth. Leukemia, her little baby had cancer. She finally managed to pull her other hand from Thor and clasp it in front of her mouth.  
  
“The doctors are giving him a good chance for survival.” Coulson continued, “My friend spoke to the attending physician and he seems to be reacting well to the treatment.”  
  
The words were meant to comfort them, but she knew well enough that there would be no knowing for sure that Loki would get better until the treatments were over and the doctors could say with certainty that the malignant cells had been removed. Tears were flowing over her cheeks now, and she let out a sob. Odin’s strong arms wrapped around her and she could feel him trembling against her. Big hands caught her own as Thor squeezed them and she could feel his agony through his slightly too tight grip. “He said he was doing alright.” She finally sobbed.  
  
“He’s relatively fine, yes.” Coulson confirmed and Frigga seized on the words. “When I learned of his...condition, I decided to visit him myself. He wasn’t at the apartment, but I managed to get hold of him at his father’s house. He has lost a lot of weight and is paler then I remember him, but other than the immediate after-effects of a chemo-session he seems to be doing rather well. And he has agreed to meet with you to talk things out.”  
  
“He’ll see us? He’s coming back?” Thor asked, voice eager like a puppy, the way Frigga remembered it from when he was much smaller and she had announced pancakes for dinner.  
  
“Although your brother is doing as well as can be expected for someone with such a serious disease, we’ve decided it would be unwise to put him through the stress of traveling so far.” Coulson said, digging around in his file for some other documents. “His biological father has agreed to host a meeting at his house. You would be able to use the apartment Loki has in town during your stay.” He pushed a sheet with two addresses on it towards Odin.  
  
Frigga turned pleading eyes on Odin. She knew that having to go to Laufey’s house made this decision harder on her husband, but she needn’t have worried. Odin had learned his own share of lessons among which seemed to be that he would never put business before family again. “We will leave tomorrow if it suits them.” He decided, “The company can be managed from a distance for as long as it needs to be.”  
  
The detective gave a satisfied smile. “I thought you would say something like that. I’ve taken the liberty to reserve three plane tickets, one way from New York to Helsinki. Your flight will leave tomorrow at noon. Here are the boarding passes.” He put the slips on the table. “I will be going as well, since Loki asked me to be your guide and, if needed, the mediator for the meeting.”  
  
The rest of the meeting passed Frigga by in a daze while her mind went ahead and planned everything she needed to pack, who she needed to notify of their absence and many more details. She dutifully shook the detective’s hand as he left, noticed Thor and Odin do their own amount of calling around and arranging things while she sat at the table with the tickets in her hand and glorying in the fact that these little papers were going to take her to her son.


	19. Confrontations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

_*Odin*_  
  
Despite the fact that he had money enough for it, Odin had never traveled much. There was the business that had taken up a lot of his time and the rest of it he had wanted to spend with his wife and children without the stress of airports or cartrips. There had been his honeymoon with Frigga to Paris 33 years ago and then a few trips to the beach with the whole family when the boys had been very much younger.  
  
The airport of Helsinki didn’t look much different from the one in New York, apart from the fact that it was obviously smaller and (at this time) less populated. Coulson had guided them first to the luggage collection and then outside, where he had hailed two cabs: one to take their family to Loki’s apartment, and one to take himself to a hotel in the same town. He had handed Thor the key to their temporary residence and their driver the necessary directions before promising to come and collect them the next day at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.  
  
And that was how they found themselves in the taxi, driving on a nearly deserted highway from the airport. Outside it was fully dark and the clock on the dashboard informed him it was very early in the new day. Frigga was looking outside, one of her hands grasped between his own two in a gesture of comfort both knew was largely futile. Still, she smiled at him and he was glad that the strain on their relationship had largely disappeared during the time he had spent at home.  
  
His wife had forced him to see some truths about their family that he had largely ignored. Or maybe it would be better to say that he had been ignorant of them. Like the fact that Thor, although he might get good at the job of co-CEO he had made for him, would never love accounting like Odin did. Or that Loki, for all his confidence in the boardroom, had never felt equal to Thor in their father’s regard. He saw now that he had allowed his sense of business to cloud his sense of family.  
  
Frigga had sat patiently with him while she shared another side of their children. Their hopes and dreams, personal likes and dislikes, the little quirks of their personalities that made them unique. And he realized that he had missed all of that, too busy to see the treasures that were underneath his very nose before he nearly lost them all. He had promised her he would try to do better and she had promised to be there as his guide. It had been a very tearful afternoon, but they had both become better for it.  
  
The car stopped before a three-storey building sometime later. The driver unloaded their suitcases and helped carry them inside and then up the stairs, since the building had no elevator. Odin tipped him generously for his aid and the three of them were left in the empty apartment when the driver left.  
  
Odin looked around slowly, moving from place to place while Thor made up the couch with the provided sheets and pillows. Frigga went with him, eager to find traces of her youngest son. There wasn’t much to be found: the apartment lacked a personal touch and items. Either Loki had everything in storage somewhere, or it had all been moved to his biological father’s house. They ended their tour in the kitchen, where Thor was making them coffee.  
“There’s enough stuff here for breakfast and dinner. Looks like Loki didn’t want us to get hungry for about a week or so.” Their son said, placing a steaming mugg before each of them.  
  
“Well, that’s something at least.” Frigga said with a sigh, folding her hands around her cup. Odin put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her against him for a moment, eliciting a tired smile.  
  
“It’s late.” He then said, “And tomorrow will be a hard day, no matter how it turns out.” Please, please let it turn out good “I suggest we all try to sleep some, then see what meal we’re up for before Coulson comes to get us.”  
  
“And hope we’re not too jet lagged later today.” Thor put in, trying to keep the tension from getting to them more than it already had.  
  
Odin smiled at him, grateful for the attempt. They sipped their coffee in silence, retiring when ent to the single bedroom with Frigga, determined to get all the sleep he could so that he would have his wits around him while attempting to show Loki that he still (and had always) loved him.  
  
  
 _*Loki*_  
  
Although Loki was very grateful that he was being spared the hassle that would come from having to go to New York to meet his fosterparents and –brother, by the time the day of the meeting came along, he doubted he would feel the extra stress on top off all the nerves that were already putting him on edge. Sitting still for any amount of time was becoming impossible, not even for a nap, and he only ate because he knew he had to keep up his strength.  
  
Laufey had been watching him since they had contacted Coulson to make the arrangments. He hadn’t pushed him into anything, just made sure that he continued to function. They had made a trip to the store (both for their own necessities and to stock up the appartment for the Asgards) and it had felt nice to do something together. It wasn’t real father-son bonding stuff, but they were both alright with starting small.  
  
A hand came to cover his own as he made another small adjustment to one of the cups that stood waiting for their meeting on the living room table. He looked up at his father, whose expression held the middle between amusement and sympathy.  
  
“I think the table is as good as it’ll ever be.” The older man said. “I know you’re nervous. Just keep in mind that you’re not the only one. I’m nervous too, and I expect the others will not fare much better.”  
  
“I know that,” Loki replied, sounding just a tiny bit petulant, “but I simply can’t help myself. What if they hate me? What if I see them again and all the betrayal comes back. What if..” he trailed off as Laufey caught him by his shoulders.  
  
“I know this will sound hypocritical coming from me, but you have to roll with the punches and get back up, no matter what happens.” his father said, “If you ask me, the most likely outcome will be that you all hug and sob and I will be left with a room full of crying Americans.”  
  
This got a small chuckle out of Loki, if only at the mental picture it summoned up. “Oh whatever will you do with us?” he said with a laugh.  
  
“I suspect I will just collect as much bribing-material as I can. I should have a camera somewhere...ouch.” he cut of with a laugh as his son gave him a playful shove. “Really, though, I’ll live. Now will you try to sleep some? You still have an hour before they get here.”  
  
“I’ll try,” Loki agreed, walking over to the couch that he usually claimed for such naps “but I can’t promise that I’ll be all that succesfull.” He stretched out, mind still spinning through thoughts that grew more and more muddled as his exhausted state finally caught up with him and dragged him under.  
  
  
 _*Frigga*_  
  
Laufey’s property looked a little ‘careworn’ from the outside, to say the least. Frigga had exited the rental car in which Coulson had come to pick them up and was now staring at the dilapidated gate and the overgrown fence. It probably would have looked worse if snow hadn’t covered up most of it. This wasn’t a good place for her sick child to live in: he needed warmth and comfort, not some drafty place that was falling apart.  
  
Coulson walked up to the gate and held it open for them. Frigga hooked her hand into her husband’s arm and began the trek up the driveway. She could faintly see the house through the trees and it looked every bit as rundown as she had feared. They climbed the porch and stood behind their mediator as he knocked on the door. They had to wait for a moment and she bit her lip nervously before they could hear footsteps approaching the door.  
  
As it opened, it showed a man who was about 7 years younger than Odin. A man she had only met once at a benefit more than 30 years ago. Laufey Nal looked them over for a second before focusing on the detective.  
  
“Mister Coulson,” the Fin greeted with a carefully even voice, “Please do come in.” He held the door wide. They entered and followed their host through a hallway into the larger (and warmer) living area. A great table dominated one side and behind it (Frigga had to keep herself from running to him immediately) stood her youngest son.  
  
He was very pale, eyes sunken and tired but not without a sparkle of the alertness that she loved so in him. Instead of the suits he mostly wore for work, he was clad now in soft, comfortable clothes that hung from him because of the weightloss. Seeing him impressed on her just how very sick he was. Her heart ached for him and she tightened her grip on Odin’s arm to keep from bursting into tears before the meeting had even started. Loki seemed to be struggling with his emotions too, eyes gleaming more than usual. She wanted to believe that it was joy at seeing them again, but she knew he teared up when he was frustrated or angry as well. His face didn’t seem to hint at either of those latter emotions, but she didn’t want to presume to know what went through him any more.

Coulson took a seat at the table and this movement spurred the rest of them into action. The detective had the seat at the table’s head as mediator, Laufey and Loki sat on one side of him and Frigga sat down with her husband and eldest on the other side. There was silence for a while as both parties used the pretense of taking beverages to size eachother up.  
  
Laufey’s chair stood very close to Loki’s, Frigga noticed, as if he would protect him from whatever blame or lies he expected from their side of the table. Loki himself was nervous, avoiding everyone’s gaze by staring into his cup of tea. Laufey eyed them all in turn, eyes narrowing a bit when he came to Odin, but returning Frigga’s tentative smile when he saw it.  
  
Beside her, Odin was dividing his attention between Loki and Laufey and she could feel his muscles tense whenever he looked at his old rival. Since he knew that their youngest had gone to his biological father her husband had been torn between guilt for his own actions and anger at Laufey for ‘stealing’ their son from them. He seemed to be trying his best to control himself now and willing to wait to see how the meeting would conclude. At her other side, Thor seemed to vibrate with impatience. He alone had not taken anything to drink, as if this could move things ahead faster. His eyes were firmly on his brother, his expression shocked at the state he was in. It must be difficult for Thor to see his little brother as anything but the well-dressed, in-control person he had known for his entire life.  
  
Finally Coulson cleared his throat, making all eyes turn to him. “I trust we all know why we’re here today. There has been a lot happening in both your families these last months and there are many things that need to be discussed. I’m going to let you do most of the talking, but I will intervene when things get too heated.” He turned to Frigga with a little nod of aknowledgement. “I would like to let Frigga talk first, since she agreed to be the spokesperson for the entire family and I would like you to just listen while she does so. Any questions or remarks can be answered afterwards.” With that he gave her a small smile, indicating she could begin.  
  
Frigga breathed in deeply to calm her own raging nerves and took a last look at her audience. Laufey looked critical, as if he expected her to come up with all kinds of excuses for what they had done. Loki’s expression, though, nearly broke her heart: it seemed like he was begging her to tell him that they had never wanted to hurt him, that there was an explanation for all the secrecy and the decision to pass him over in favour of Thor. Frigga folded her hands beneath the table, squeezing them to ground herself, and began.  
  
“Our story starts nearly 30 years ago, when Ella Farbauti came to us with a newborn baby in her arms.”  
  



	20. Resolutions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Loki sat silently as his mother talked, freely and without any secrets this time.  He heard how his real mother had brought him to the Asgards, how they had taken him in out of both guilt and affection.  He felt his father’s breath speed up as Frigga explained that they had never notified Laufey because Ella had seemed so disinclined to do so herself.  And also because they didn’t want to loose him.  Frigga was ruthlessly honest, even if that didn’t put her in the best light.  They had tried to rationalise their decision to themselves, thinking they could take better care of the infant because Laufey had been disgraced and had left the States.  And if Ella had not wished to stay with him, surely he was not fit to raise such a young child by himself.

“We are very sorry,” Frigga said, her breath hitching slightly as she looked at Laufey with tearfull eyes, “for being so presumptious.  For keeping your child from you.  We had no right to do so, and we knew it, but we did it nevertheless.” Laufey didn’t react, but his fingers were white around the mug that stood in front of him.

Frigga turned to Loki then, and he found himself gripping his own cup in anticipation.  He had both wanted and feared this explanation and now that he was getting it, he had so many conflicting emotions that he didn’t quite know what to feel first.

“We raised you as our own, and you were such a beautiful child.  We tought to tell you you were adopted when you turned 12, so you could understand that it didn’t mean that we loved you less than Thor.  But as that date came closer, we grew scared that you wouldn’t love us anymore because we weren’t your real parents.  So we pushed the date back a few years, and then kept pushing it back.”  She wiped quickly at a lone tear that had escaped her eyes.  “We should have trusted you to make the right decision for yourself, not covered everything up in fear.” 

And Loki didn’t know.  He wanted to think he would have reached the right conclusion, even with a revelation like that clouding his emotions.  Recent events however, proved that he couldn’t be so sure of his supposed reaction: his parents could have very well been proven right to fear the outcome.

Frigga continued: “So we didn’t tell you and both of you grew up, thinking you were ours.”  She went on with how proud they had been of both of them as they graduated and gotten jobs within the firm.  And how, as time passed, they had begun to worry, not about Loki, but about Thor.  How he didn’t seem to fit in, being out with his friends more than he was in his office, shirking responsibility.  From the look on Thor’s face, this was news to him too.  And it made Loki wonder even more about why they had given him the job if they had noticed all those things.

“We thought that we could push Thor by giving him all the responsibility at once, in a way he could not dodge.  We wanted to give him a period in which to realise how hard both Odin and Loki worked for the firm.  We were sure he would come to like the firm and would gladly do the long hours that it requires.”  She sighed.  “We wanted to tell you the day after the boardmeeting that we weren’t pushing you out of the picture.  We have always appreciated your work, Loki, even if we didn’t show it enough.  We wanted to ask you to be patient, to let Thor find his own way while still keeping an eye on him.  When he was ready, we would bump you up so you could both be CEO’s together.” 

“And then everything fell apart when you fell sick and we didn’t have that conversation to explain.  Instead you were left feeling so spurned that you decided to leave us.”  Frigga breathed in deeply.  “Your leaving hurt, I won’t deny that.  The fact that you thought so little of us as to think we could just push you aside…”

She couldn’t go on for a second and Loki felt hot tears welling in his eyes.  He had done this, he had hurt the people who had raised him, who were more parents to him than his biological mother and father were.  A few months ago he would have been glad of it too, to not have to be the only one who was hurting.  Now it just filled him with sadness and shame, that he could do this to people he loved so.  It was a struggle not to go to her and beg for forgiveness, but he breathed shakily and stayed seated.  He would have his chance to apologize later.

“We tried to reach you ourselves, but you wouldn’t pick up and eventually we grew desperate enough to ask Mister Coulson to find you.  He told us about your… your illness and that you had agreed to meet us.”  She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, her other hand in the comforting grasp of her husband.  “I can’t tell you how grateful we are for the chance to show you that we always loved you, even if we failed to show it enough.  I hope you can find it in you to forgive us.”  She was quiet then, not daring to look up, fearing his answer.

As if there could be any other answer than the fact that he had always loved them, even when he had been so angry with them that he had thought he never wanted to see them again.  There was silence for a while as everyone carefully avoided eachother’s gazes. 

Coulson finally cleared his throat, garnering their attention.  “So, we’ve heard one side of the story.  Loki, would you give us your side?”

He nodded, but found himself unable to speak for another long moment, wondering where to start.  He had thought his words over a lot lately, tried to formulate it to himself in such a way that it didn’t sound petulant.  After the way his mother had been brave enough to throw everything in the open, he found he could do no less.  He took a quick sip of tea, looked at Laufey (receiving a nod of encouragement and a squeeze of his hand) and started.

He tried to explain how painful it had been to hear himself being passed over in the boardroom, wondering what he had done wrong to deserve being pushed aside.  Then finding out he had cancer and that his family wasn’t really his family.  Secretly getting a copy of his birth certificate and seeing black on white that the people he had thought were his parents, had in fact lied to him.  He struggled to put under words what he had felt when he decided to leave everything behind.

“I felt so disconnected from everything.  Like I was just drifting and my life was drifting the other way.  I’m used to being in control of situations, of knowing what to do and this time I didn’t and…” he cast a quick look at his American family “and it scared me.  And I thought, if I could just act, just do something, then everything would be all right again.  I couldn’t do anything about the fact Thor had been chosen over me.  I couldn’t change the fact that I wasn’t your biological son. The only thing I could help was my health and for that I needed my biological family.”

He sighed, giving a little squeeze in the hand that was still holding his.  “I’ve been unfair to all of you. I didn’t believe that Laufey would be willing to help me: the son who was raised by his enemies and who he had never met before.  So I came up with a plan to trade the stem cells I needed for the opportunity to get revenge on Asgard.  I know it was petty and that I could have ruined everything you spent years building.” He threw a quick, apologetic look at Odin, “I just…I wanted to show you I could do it.  That you were wrong, giving the position to Thor.  And I thought it would create a bond between Laufey and I that would be much stronger than if I just appealed to a blood bond neither of us felt.”

He sighed again before quickly relating the rest of his story: coming to Finland, meeting Laufey, the first chemo treatment and its horrible after-effects.  (Frigga broke out in sobs as he recounts this part and her husband pulled her close, while Thor forgot himself and reached out across the table to quickly touch his hand, as if to ascertain that his brother survived the ordeal and now sat safely before him.)  How down he was after that and how Tony visited and pulled him through.  How he grew closer to Laufey and then how that last one had taken him in after the second treatment when Tony had been forced to go back to the States.  And then finally how Coulson had found him and had told him how much his family missed him.

And now they were here.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of.” He admitted, head hanging in the same shame that had kept Frigga from looking at him at the end of her own tale.  “But I wouldn’t take all of them back.  I could never regret coming here and meeting my birth father.  I hope you can forgive me for hurting you all, for not giving you a chance to explain.”

“Only if you can forgive us for hurting you, however unintentional both our actions may have been.” Odin rejoined.

Loki found that once again, his throat was too tight to answer, so all he could do was nod and cry.  Then Frigga was out of her chair and around the table in a flash, wrapping her arms around him and crying with him, muttering “Oh my boy, my lovely child.” And his arms went around her automatically and they cried and rocked together for what seemed like hours.  He felt a pair of big warms hands gripping his shoulders and another pair wrapping around his free hand.  When Laufey tried to pull away to give them some privacy, Loki refused to let go of his hand, keeping him right there beside him.

Afterwards, when they had all calmed a little, there was a second round of coffee and tea as they retook their places around the table.  Loki felt calmer now that he had his parent’s forgiveness and sipped of the hot liquid in his cup.  They would still dance around one another for quite some time: they had all changed and needed to carefully test where they fit into all these new relationships.

“So,” Thor said after having emptied his own cup, “what happens now?” He looked around at the gathered people.  “I mean, it will take awhile before Loki’s back to full health.  And he’ll have to stay here, because that’s where his attending doctor is, right?”

Loki nodded, unused to seeing Thor take the initiative like that in a situation where planning was required.

“And I’m betting mother would not take well to the suggestion of going back to New York during that time.”  Frigga’s stubborn expression said he was quite right in that assumption.  “But Asgard can’t miss us all the time, so we’ll have to move back and forth a bit.”  He looked at his brother with a hopeful expression, “If you’ll have us, of course.”

“Of course,” Loki confirmed.  “I’ll keep the apartment and you’d be welcome there whenever you like.”

“That brings us to the company then.” Thor said.  Loki watched as his brother took a deep breath before letting it explode out on the words “I don’t want it.”  Nobody moved or gave as much as a peep: Odin too busy staring at Thor in horror and Loki doing much the same but rather in awe that his brother dared defy his father in such a grave matter.

To Odin’s credit, he didn’t start shouting at Thor for throwing away the firm he had worked hiw whole life to build.  It had to hurt him that both of his sons had now deserted it, Loki could see it in the slump of his shoulders.  Yet all he did was bow his head and nod.

“Loki will be much better for it anyway.” Thor said.  He looked a little surprised that no argument seemed to be forthcoming.  Loki imagined he had had this conversation with himself quite a few times and that he had expected far more resistance to his decision.

“Loki needs to lead his own company.” Odin sighed, shaking his grey head, “We will need to look for someone to take over Asgard.”

Laufey squeezed Loki’s hand before clearing his throat.  “If I may.” He said, directing himself to Odin.  “I don’t want to accuse you of anything, but I know what it is like to have to give up the company you worked so hard for.”  As Odin nodded in agreement, he continued. “Jotunheim is only just beginning.  We may have a big account to manage, but there are only two of us at the moment and Loki can’t be counted as a full-time employee while the leukemia and chemo-treatments take so much out of him.”

“Are you suggesting closing Jotunheim and comming to work for Asgard?” Odin asked, confused as to what his former rival’s point was.

Loki sat up straighter and looked at Laufey in distress: they couldn’t do that to Tony!  His friend had been with him all the way in this new venture, had given him his hard-earned trust.  Loki would rather die painfully than to repay him by making him look foolish in front of his board of directors and other CEO’s.

“No,” Laufey said raising an eyebrow at the suggestion, “We made a commitment to Stark Industries and we will honour it.”  Loki let out the anxious breath he had been holding while his father continued:  I was thinking more in the line of merging the two companies.”

All eyes turned to Odin, who frowned, thinking the solution over.  Slowly his face cleared and he nodded decisively to himself.  “It should work.  We can keep things afloat until Loki is well enough again to take the lead.”  He gave his youngest a small smile.  “Is this solution something you can get behind?”

Loki looked from Odin to Laufey, both of whom where ready to put old grievances behind them to make sure their shared son could have a bright future with both companies he loved.  If he hadn’t cried so much already this afternoon, he was sure he would have started again.  Instead he stood and hugged his fathers, beyond words at the joy that flowed through him.  His family still loved him, he had gained an extra father and he could go on doing what he loved.

If ever a story had a happy ending, this would be it.  
  
  


 


	21. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these character, they're copyrighted by Marvel.

Of course, the family meeting was not the end.  Or rather, it was an end and a new beginning all in one. 

Remaining true to her promise, Frigga had not gone back to New York when Odin and Thor had been forced to leave two weeks later.  She and Laufey had seen him through the last two treatments and had taken him in for the transplantation of new stem cells a few months into the new year.  Laufey had been found to indeed be a match for him and had donated them without being asked.  Loki had gone on the drip for the last time to receive them, having to stay over in the hospital for a few days while they waited for his blood cell count to rise again.

Two days into his stay found him waking up shivering and sweating in turns as an infection had burst through his non-existent immune system and caused havoc in his body.  He still didn’t have enough white blood cells to let his body fight the intruders off and despite the fact that the hospital staff started him on antibiotics straight away, his condition had only worsened by the time evening rolled in.

Frigga sat beside his bed, holding his hand while he slept or softly talking when he was awake.  Laufey sat on the other side, trying to work but his head shot up every time Loki made a sound or moved.  Doctor Barlund and several of her staff came in regularly to monitor his temperature, but they could do nothing more until the blood they had drawn was analyzed by the lab and they could give more specific medicines.

Loki’s condition continued to grow worse even with the specific care required and hospital personnel started to fear the worst.  They fed him through an IV now and administered sponge baths to try and cool down the fever.   Frigga had called Thor and Odin that morning and they arrived in the middle of the night.  The same plane also brought Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, who had been notified by Laufey.

By morning, Loki was moved to the intensive ward and only two people were allowed by his side for small periods of time.  Cecilia Barlund told them they would wait until that evening and if there was no improvement then, they would have no other choice but to put him in a medically induced coma to give his body enough rest to hopefully recuperate.

The hours ticked away towards evening and still there was no sign of Loki pulling through on his own.  Odin and Frigga went in for the first visit, then Thor and Laufey and in the late afternoon, Pepper and Tony.  Despite Loki not being awake for any of it, they had all said their goodbyes, hoping for the best and prepared for the worst.  They had gathered once again in the waitingroom when Doctor Barlund burst in to tell them the fever was lowering and Loki’s white bloodcells were now actively taking on the infection. 

When Loki finally opened his eyes again halfway through the third day, it was to a room full of relieved people, some of them with suspiciously red-rimmed eyes.  There were hugs all around, hotelrooms were arranged and nobody went back to New York before Loki was pronouned healthy again, the cancer fully gone and all tests coming back normal.

 

 

  
  
Three years later found Loki sitting in his former office at Asgard Enterprises.  It had been promoted to the office of the CEO some time ago, leaving Laufey to occupy Odin’s former space as his foremost advisor.   Loki had been bumped up to the CEO-position as soon as he felt ready for it after his health had been formally cleared first by Doctor Barlund in Helsinki and then again by Doctor Bennet when he had arrived back in New York.  Everyone had been hugely relieved and Frigga had outdone herself with the food for the celebration party, making enough for a small army in her joy at finding her youngest son out of harm’s way.

Loki had taken to leading the large, merged firm very well.  Nobody had been surprised, being aquainted with his work before his leave, but it still felt good to see that the people who had worked under him earlier had been eager to welcome him back as their superior.  AJE (or Asgard-Jotunheim Enterprises as the full name was) had surged to the fore of the market and had stayed there ever since.  Loki had another office at Stark Industries (curtesy of Tony, who still had to learn the meaning of ‘No, Tony, thank you for offering but I already have an office’).  He ended up spending at least a week a month there anyway, since it was more practical when he worked on their acount.  The office had indeed been christened with a sushi party.

Odin still consulted at times (mostly questions asked over family meals), but was mostly enjoying his retirement, complete with holidays on white sandy beaches under palmtrees.   Laufey (who was a few years younger), had an office right down the hall and went in and out a lot to discuss things.  They made a pretty good team and had grown closer during the last months of Loki’s illness.  They both had appartments in New York now, since their headquarters were here and Laufey had nothing to keep him in Finland permanently.

Which wasn’t to say that they didn’t visit it a lot, Laufey spending all his vacations there an Loki often joining him.  In fact they would go for a week right after the boardmeeting Loki was now preparing. 

A boardmeeting that seemed destined to fall into ruin as Loki’s computer sputtered with a groan and then displayed a blue screen with dancing white letters that didn’t make any sense whatsoever.  “No, no, no.” He groaned as he thunked his head down into his hands.  He didn’t have time for the blasted machine to quit on him now, he needed to process the last of the data and review the reports he had been sent!

“Trouble, brother?” Thor’s blond head was stuck grinning around the door, “I could hear you panicking all the way to the elevator.”

“Thor!”  Loki’s head shot up and he gave his brother a wide smile.  They had seen less of eachother while Thor had gone back to school, determined to get his computer engineering degree.  He had passed this summer with flying colors and had become the head of AJE’s IT-department (which was now no longer outsourced).  His brother had proven himself equal to the task and was quite happy to go to work now every day. 

He came to stand beside Loki, looking at the pc with a grimace.  “I’m sorry to say it, Loki, but that thing is fried.  There’s no arguing with the blue screen of death.”

“The what?” Loki asked, “You’re making that up, aren’t you?”      

“Afraid not, little brother.” Thor laughed, squeezing his shoulder.  “It’s been the bane of users and technicians since the dawn of the computer-age.  Did you save your work to the company-server before it failed?”

Loki gave a sheepish shrug.  “I may have forgotten that precaution, despite all the times you told me not to.”

Thor groaned.  “Looooki!  I don’t say those things because they’re funny.” He sighed and fished in one of his pockters for a screwdriver.  “If you’re lucky I can save part of the harddisk and the file you were working on.” He set to work diligently, opening the pc’s case and rooting around inside for the part he needed.

“I’m sorry,” Loki said contritely, watching him try to salvage what he could, using other cables to attach the drive to his own laptop and start the program that showed him what could be saved.  It all looked very complicated to him and he wondered if this was what Thor had felt every time he had been forced to look at the balance-sheets of Asgard.  “Isä and I are going skiing next week.”  Loki had compensated with calling Odin ‘father’ and Laufey ‘isä’ which meant exactly the same only in different languages.  “There’s still room for one more if you want to come.”  Thor hummed, looking thoughtful.  He seemed to like Laufey well enough, but maybe he would feel like the fifth wheel.  Loki added: “Tony is coming as well, so we would be an even number.”

“Very well,” Thor acceded, “I will teach you how to snowboard.  It is a lot more fun than just skiing.”

“A lot more dangerous you mean?” Loki said, but he laughed as he did so.

“Well, that’s part of the fun.” His brother grinned.  He tapped a few more keys and gave a triumphant cry.  “Oh, you’re in luck, brother, seems like I can retrieve your precious report!”

Loki gave a happy shout and hugged his brother around the shoulders, sloppily kissing his temple.  “You’re the best brother in the world!  What would I do without you?”

“Hire yourself another technician?” Thor replied, saving the report to a usb-stick and handing it to his brother who cradled it to his chest as if it was the Holy Grail.  “Are you good with working on your laptop for the rest of the day?  I can have a new pc delivered by tomorrow morning.”

“Not a problem,” Loki said, already digging his case out from where he had put it that morning.  “How long do I have until Mother expects us.”

“Dinner is at eight.” Thor said.  “I still have some stuff to do around here so I’ll come and get you and Laufey at around 7?”

“Seven is perfect.  And thanks again,” he said as Thor turned to leave, waving at the latop, “You really did save my ass on this one.”

“What are big brothers for?” the other asked with a wink and then he was gone.

Loki sighed with contentment as he opened his report (quickly saving a copy to the server).  He knew things never stayed perfect for long, but while they were, he planned to enjoy every moment of it.

 

**fin**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all of you: thanks for reading and reviewing, you've been the best audience I could hope for!


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